Harswell, Everingham (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Herssewell in Spaldingmor.

In the civil parish of Everingham.
In the historic county of Yorkshire.
Modern Authority of East Riding of Yorkshire.
1974 county of Humberside.
Medieval County of Yorkshire East Riding.

OS Map Grid Reference: SE82044082
Latitude 53.85713° Longitude -0.75417°

Harswell, Everingham has been described as a probable Fortified Manor House.

There are no visible remains.

Description

The remains of a badly mutilated bipartite moated homestead, the eastern arm having been destroyed. The ditch, which is now dry, averages 11.0m in width and is 0.6m deep. There are no foundations visible within the much disturbed interior, but a house is shown on an old plan (undated) which is in the possession of the farmer (Field Investigators Comments–F1 BHP 21-AUG-72). Licence to crenellate granted in 1247. Moat being filled. (Le Patourel). The moated site was mapped from air photographs, seen as an earthwork in the 1940s, the site is seen plough-levelled on the latest photography. The two islands measured 80 m and 40 m in length respectively and 60-70 m in breadth. There appears to have been very broad rig and furrow within the moated area, and outside adjacent to the west. Further air photographs taken in 2005 again show the moat visible as very clear cropmarks. Two ditches are evident at the south-west and close to the north-east corners of the enclosure which must have acted as inlet/outlet channels. Also a second substantial ditch appears within the line of the western side of the moat and appears to shadow its course perhaps indicating that the moat ditches were re-cut and re-aligned at some point. There are some vague marks within the interior of the moated enclosure which may relate to buildings. (PastScape)

A Royal licence to crenellate was granted in 1303 Oct 20 (Click on the date for details of this licence.).

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 61495.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 3510.

Books
- Emery, Anthony, 1996, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales Vol. 1 Northern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) p. 421
  Neave, Susan, 1991, Medieval Parks of East Yorkshire (Univeristy of Hull) p. 36-7
  Loughlin, Neil and Miller, Keith, 1979, A survey of archaeological sites in Humberside carried out for the Humberside Joint Archaeological Committee p. 90
  Le Patourel, H.E. Jean, 1973, The Moated Sites of Yorkshire (The Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph Series 5) p. 113
  Turner, T.H. and Parker, J.H., 1859, Some account of Domestic Architecture in England (Oxford) Vol. 3 Part 2 p. 404 online copy
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed), 1898, Calendar of Patent Rolls Edward I (1301-1307) Vol. 4 p. 160 online copy

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The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

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