Brymshoo

Description

An incomplete moat at New Hall, Purleigh was identified by P J Cook from a map of the hall dated circa 1600. The remains of a rectangular moat are visible W of New Hall. The S arm survives only in the SW corner where it is dry and under grass, and has a maximum width of 12m and depth of 0.6m; it is truncated to the S and E by the modern access track from the farm to Chelmsford Road. The N arm was infilled by the present owner about 25 years ago, and now is traceable as a gentle scarp in the garden lawn NW of the farmhouse. The W arm has also been much reduced in both width and depth, particularly in its southern half, by the encroachment of the field to the W now planted as a vineyard, although it still survives as a field drain feeding a pond in the NW corner of the moat. The original external length of this W arm was probably in the order of 70m. The modern pond which now occupies its N end is drained to the N by a combination of the field drain, which may perpetuate part of the original water management system for the moat. New Hall farmhouse has C19 facades, but the owners say parts date back to the C15, and as such it may therefore represent the original house that stood inside the moat. (PastScape)

New Hall in Purleigh "was formerly called "Brymshams" (1527), "Bremstones" (1537) and "Brempsons" (1554) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brimson ref. Essex Place-Names)

Comments

Humphrey de Bohan was granted a licence to crenellate in 1347 for ten named properties. One of these was Brymshoo in Essex. De Bohun was wealthy with land and recent French booty and ransoms, probably would have had the resources to do some building at all of these sites, although a full programmes of new building works was probably not really intended at every site. The arrival of the Black Death the next year certainly would have curtailed any building programme.
Gatehouse has previously identified a mound at Brimstone Hill as a possible site. That site is not that of a domestic house and is no longer considered as a potential site. The moat at New Hall seems much more like that of a licenced house but the tenurial history has to be confirmed before such an identification is certain. This manor seems to have been a holding of the Brinson family (de Breaunzon, Brianzun) along with West Thurrock until that estate was split up and sold off in 1339. If so then this was a newly obtained manor for Bohan.