Steeton Hall, Steeton

Description

The remains of the medieval moated site of Steeton Hall and a complex of fishponds. Steeton Hall was a manor house built for Sir Guy Fairfax in circa 1474. By 1558, when there was an inventory made of the property of the late Sir William Fairfax, his hall had a chapel, nine bedrooms, two studies, a hall and a parlour. At the beginning of C18 the hall was partly demolished, leaving the range that is still in use as a farmhouse. In 1873, the chapel was also demolished. The hall was sited on a moated island. Most of the eastern circuit of the moat ditch survives as an earthwork feature, with the north eastern part forming a section of a modern drainage system. The southern part of the moat ditch can be seen as a shallow depression with the northern section surviving as a deeper depression to the north of the upstanding part of the hall. The western side of the moat ditch is no longer traceable. In 1533 The Great Stank, a large pond sited along the main street of the former medieval village of Steeton, was built under licence from the Crown. It now survives as a mainly dry north-south orientated depression, over 250m long and up to 2m deep. In the centre, but towards the southern end of the pond, there is a 20 metre diameter island. At the north end of the Great Stank there is another fishpond, now surviving as an infilled feature, which was roughly 40m across. (PastScape)

Steeton was recorded as Stiuetone in the Domesday Book and lay in the Wapentake of The Ainstey (one of the 11 West Riding medieval administrative districts established by the Danes before the Norman Conquest). ... the large moated site of Steeton Hall. This was originally an island containing the hall itself, associated buildings, gardens and other features surrounded by a moat ditch. Most of the eastern circuit of the moat ditch survives as an earthwork feature, with the north eastern part forming a section of the modern drainage system that subsequently runs through The Great Stank. The southern part of the moat ditch can be seen as a shallow depression in the field to the south of the trackway leading east from the modern farm buildings. The northern section survives as a deeper depression to the north of the upstanding part of the hall. The western side of the moat ditch is no longer traceable, but it would have passed through the area now covered by the later farm buildings. On the island of the moated site there is one range of the manor house built for Sir Guy Fairfax in c.1474. This is excluded from the scheduling as it is in domestic use as a farm house and is Listed Grade II-star. The foundations of the rest of the manor house complex, including the chapel, will survive as buried features and are included in the scheduling. A low north-south bank divides the island in two, and runs to the east of the hall. In the paddock to the north of the Hall, on the north side of the northern moat ditch, there is a square building platform approximately 40m across with a ditch on both south and east sides. In the north east of this paddock there is a second, much smaller platform. (Scheduling Report)