Skirpenbeck Manor House

Description

Moated site at Manor House, on the eastern end of the village of Skirpenbeck, immediately to the north of St Mary's Church. The moated site is large and complex, and lies within a wider group which included fishponds and a series of water-management channels. Many of these features have been infilled but will survive as buried features and are thus included in the scheduling. The central island of the site is on a large raised platform nearly a hectare in area, about 5m above the present day ground level and surrounded by a moat. Towards the north western side of the platform lies Manor Farm, a building of post-medieval date, although the original occupation of the moated site is thought to date to the reign of Edward I. The design of the moat has taken advantage of a west-east flowing stream immediately to its north. To the north of the platform lay a series of fishponds, which have been recently infilled, and are now no longer visible, although they will survive as buried features. Further to the west of the moat lay other earthwork features related to the moat, including banks, ditches and drainage features. The latter have all been infilled recently, but will still survive as buried features and are included in the scheduling. The two best-surviving arms of the moat lie either side of the modern farm complex, to the east and the west, divided from one another by an original entrance and causeway to the south, just east of St Mary's Church. The eastern arm of the moat includes a continuous ditch with exterior bank curving from the north west to the south east and then turning abruptly west in a near right-angled bend. This southern, east-west ditch is up to 8m wide across the top and 1.5m wide at its bottom, being nearly 'V' shaped in profile, and up to 4m deep in places. The exterior bank does not survive well given the proximity to a field boundary and arable cultivation along its southern boundary. The western moat arm is between 12m and 25m wide across the top and 2m-5m across its base. Its exterior bank, which survives well, is around 2.5m in height. Towards the northern end of this moat arm, as it starts curving eastwards to enclose the central platform, it loses definition and has been almost destroyed above ground by farming activity here. The remains of a feeder channel linking the southern moat arm to a related dyke lying further south, parallel with Doe Park Lane, has since been infilled by ploughing activity, but will also survive as a buried feature, and is included in the scheduling, as it links the main moat with the drainage channel described below. The moat arm surviving to the west of the platform is 4m wide at its base, 10m wide across the top, 4m deep and 75m overall in length. At its southern end curving eastwards, and at right angles to it is a low east-west depression forming the northern boundary to the graveyard of St Mary's Church, and representing the remains of the south western moat arm leading east towards the central southern causeway entrance, and the ditches to the eastern side of the platform. The northern boundary of St Mary's churchyard lies immediately south of the outer bank of the moated site. A 250m long ditch orientated east-west lies along the northern side of Doe Park Lane and is interpreted as a related water feed channel, contemporary with the main moat, and is included in the scheduling. (Scheduling Report)