Slapton Ley Bridge defence (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Pool Farm; Pole; Poole

In the civil parish of Slapton.
In the historic county of Devonshire.
Modern Authority of Devon.
1974 county of Devon.
Medieval County of Devon.

OS Map Grid Reference: SX827443
Latitude 50.28762° Longitude -3.64711°

Slapton Ley Bridge defence has been described as a Fortified Bridge although is doubtful that it was such.

There are no visible remains.

Description

Slapton Manor had a gatehouse at the landward end of the bridge over the freshwater lagoon of Slapton Ley. This is shown on the Cotton MS map in the British Library which is a pictorial map of the 1540s showing the sea defences of south-west England. While most of these defences are blockhouses, the Slapton Bridge defence is shown as a barbican with two tall drum or D shaped towers flanking a drawbridge. How much for show this was, is uncertain, but it guarded the only way of crossing the Ley dryshod. A collegiate church was built at Slapton in 1372 and it is possible that the gatehouse was related to it as well as the manor, which belonged to Sir Guy de Bryan. (Robert Waterhouse 2007)

Comments

The gateway is shown as on the waters edge. The manor seems to have a little outside the village and inland (at Poole) and, whilst this feature may have been associated with the college (itself fairly inland), it should be noted that this Cotton map does include a number of planed but never built structures and is difficult to interpret. There are no archaeological remains and while the area will have had some road development and may have been subjected to erosion from storms it has not been overbuilt so whatever may have been there was probably not substancial.

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 445860 (the manor house).
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 8350; 54302.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- British Library
Books
- Pevsner N., 1952, Buildings of England: North Devon p. 264 (about manor)
  Lysons, D. and S., 1822, Magna Britannia Vol. 6 Devon p. 452 (about manor) online transcription
Periodical Articles
- Reichel, O.J., 1911, 'The Hundreds of Devon, XII. The Early History of the Hundred of Colridge' Transactions of the Devonshire Association Vol. 43 p. 196 (about manor)
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Robert Waterhouse, 2007 March 28, pers. corr.

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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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