Summary
The earthwork and buried remains of the medieval settlement of Warthole, ridge and furrow cultivation and the medieval and post-medieval Warthole Hall with the core of its associated formal gardens.
Reasons for Designation
The abandoned remains of the former Warthole medieval settlement are scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Rarity: a good example of a nucleated settlement in a region predominantly characterised by dispersed hamlets and farms, which will contribute to our knowledge and understanding of the variety of medieval rural settlement in England;
* Survival: it retains significant earthworks that are well-preserved and extensive, and illustrate its original form, plan and evolution;
* Diversity: it illustrates significant and characteristic features including hollow ways, crofts and tofts with building platforms and ridge and furrow;
* Potential: it retains significant stratified archaeological deposits and artefacts that will contribute to our knowledge of the individual buildings and features, and which will increase our understanding of the social and economic functioning of the settlement within the wider medieval landscape;
* Documentation: a well-documented settlement that informs our understanding of its evolution through historic and archaeological records including recent Lidar imagery.
History
Medieval rural settlements in England were marked by great regional diversity in form, size and type, and the protection of their archaeological remains needs to take these differences into account. To do this, England has been divided into three broad Provinces on the basis of each area's distinctive mixture of nucleated and dispersed settlements. These can be further divided into sub-Provinces, possessing characteristics which have gradually evolved during the past 1500 years or more. This monument lies in the Cumbria-Solway sub-Province of the Northern and Western Province, an area characterised by dispersed hamlets and farmsteads, but with some larger nucleated settlements in well-defined agriculturally favoured areas, established after the Norman Conquest.
The village was a significant component of the rural landscape in most areas of medieval England. It comprised a small group of houses (known as tofts which may include house platforms surviving as earthworks), gardens (crofts or closes), yards, streets and paddocks, with a community devoted primarily to agriculture. Most villages were established in the C9 and C10, but modified following the Norman invasion to have planned layouts comprising tofts and crofts running back from a main road, often linked with a back lane around the rear of the crofts. Although many villages continue to be occupied to the present day, some 2,000 nationally were abandoned in the medieval and post-medieval periods and others are shrunken. Medieval villages were supported by a communal system of agriculture based on large, unenclosed open arable fields. These large fields were sub-divided into strips which were allocated to local tenants. The cultivation of these strips with heavy ploughs pulled by oxen-teams, produced long, wide ridges and the resultant ridge and furrow where it survives is the most obvious physical indication of the open field system. It is usually now covered by the hedges or walls of subsequent field enclosure.
The settlement at Wardhall Guards is considered to be the medieval village of Warthole, also known, or recorded in historical documents as Wardhall, Warthol, Wardel and Wardell. The manor belonged to Calder Abbey, and Warthole is mentioned in documents dating to at least AD1210. It was held by the Dykes family from 1434. A court action in 1708 refers to six deserted tenements at Warthole, indicating that the settlement had become shrunken by at least that time. Documentary evidence also suggests that a manor house (possibly fortified) occupied one of the plots on the central street at the west end of the village. Towards the end of the C17 the manor house was replaced by a new hall that remained the seat of the Dykes family until the late C18, after which it fell into ruin and was demolished in 1813. Its former position is clearly marked on the first edition Ordnance Survey map (surveyed between 1865 and 1866) immediately south-east of the present Mulberry Cottage: it is annotated 'Old Hall (site of)' in Gothic script. Subsequent Ordnance Survey editions depict the remains as an elongated earthwork surrounded by rectilinear enclosures; the latter are interpreted as the remains of a formal garden associated with the hall.
The remains of the settlement and associated features appear as distinct earthworks on a number of vertical and oblique aerial photographs, most notably those taken in 2007. Environment Agency Lidar images are also available which has allowed a greater understanding of the settlement's layout and survival to be determined.
Details
PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS: the earthwork and buried remains of the medieval settlement of Warthole, ridge and furrow cultivation and the site of the medieval and post-medieval Warthole Hall and its associated formal garden features.
DESCRIPTION: the remains of the settlement are oriented north-east to south-west and are visible as prominent earthworks forming a series of mounds standing to over 1m high, scarps and ditches. The core of the earthworks is contained within a field immediately south of Old Hall Garth and Mulberry and in the field to the north-east. The settlement comprises a central village street or green, visible partially as a wide hollow-way and partially as a series of linear banks; this feature extends north-eastwards into the small field to the front of Wardhall Guards Farmhouse, where it is visible as an earthwork. Set against the south side of this central street there is a series of rectangular building platforms (tofts), and running south-east from each toft are narrow, rectangular associated gardens (crofts), defined by slight banks; some of the crofts contain ridge and furrow cultivation, which is considered to post-date their abandonment. The village is defined on the south-east side by a back-lane, visible partially as a hollow way and partially as a series of linear banks. This feature extends into a small field to the rear of Wardhall Guards Farmhouse, in which the ends of linear crofts (containing traces of ridge and furrow) are also visible as earthworks, which terminate against the back-lane. A similar lane on the same alignment defines the north-western extent of the settlement, which extends north-east into a field to the north side of that road; here the remains are also visible as prominent earthwork banks, scarps and ditches.
The site of a documented medieval manor house and its late-C17 successor, is situated towards the western end of the settlement immediately south-east of Old Hall Garth and Mulberry Cottage; it is visible as an elongated, stony mound surrounded by rectilinear earthworks considered to be the remains of associated garden features, and a trackway.
EXTENT OF SCHEDULING: the scheduling aims to include the full extent of the surviving medieval settlement, defined by upstanding earthworks, and including the medieval and post-medieval manor house and the core of its garden remains situated at the western end. The nationally important remains are contained within five fields and the areas of protection are mostly defined around the inside edge of the field boundaries. Where field boundaries are not used to define the extent of scheduling, the protective lines are defined around the edge of nationally important earthworks at a distance of 2m, which is included to ensure the adequate protection of the monument. Further earthwork remains that extend beyond the monument are considered too fragmentary and of uncertain nature and date to be of national importance at this time.
EXCLUSIONS: all above ground structures including wooden posts and stone walls are excluded from the monument, but the ground beneath these features is included.
