Eyton Old Hall Moat

Cadw's description

Summary description and reason for designation

The monument comprises the earthwork and buried remains of a medieval moated manor house dating from the 13th century AD defined by a square moat with associated water management leat located on level ground in an area of rolling farmland.

The monument comprises an almost square level platform approximately 38m² in size originally surrounded by a moat, three sides of which survive as earthwork ditches 6-7.5m wide and up to 1.5m deep. The northern stretch of moat has been back-filled and is no longer visible being overlain by the derelict 18th century and later Eyton Old Hall farmhouse with its yard and outbuildings set to its west. The upstanding walls of these buildings are excluded from the scheduled area but the land beneath them is scheduled. The central platform has been used as a kitchen garden in later centuries. The moat ditch retains water in its south-western corner; the remainder is dry but boggy. A straight outlet leat measuring 2-3 m wide and up to 1.2m deep extends for a distance of c.55m to the south-west where it discharges into a natural stream that has been converted into a deep boundary ditch. Archaeological evaluation in the centre of the platform in 2017 revealed the remains of several stone walls including the footprint of a substantial building running south for at least 9.5m from the southern wall of the farmhouse. These were associated with c.1m of archaeological deposits containing a pottery assemblage dating between the mid-13th and 18th centuries. The walls and deposits extended beyond the limits of the excavation. Cracks in the brick walls of the farmhouse may indicate subsidence due to the foundations being built over the back-filled remains of the moat, which are likely to survive beneath it. A narrow garden terrace or forecourt of local sandstone blocks in front of the northern elevation of the farmhhouse may include re-used stone from an earlier structure.

Eyton Old Hall moated site is of national importance as a well-preserved example of a high status medieval moated site with its associated waterwork management. Archaeological evaluation has demonstrated that the monument retains significant buried structural remains and stratified archaeological deposits. The wet nature of the site provides suitable conditions for survival of organic artefactual and environmental evidence. This monument has high potential to enhance our knowledge of the construction, development and occupation of the monument and of medieval moated sites and high status domestic structures in general. It demonstrates a continuity of occupation from the medieval period to the present and shares group value with a regional concentration of moated sites in Flintshire Maelor, neighbouring north Shropshire and Cheshire.

The scheduled area comprises the remains described above and an area around them in which related evidence might be expected to survive. It includes the buried remains of the projected line of the northern arm of the moat but not the upstanding remains of the present farmhouse, outbuildings and garden wall. The scheduled area is rectangular and measures 55m east to west by 49m north to south, a projection covering the line of the outlet leat to the point where it joins the stream to the south-west measures 7m wide by 52m long.