Lordship Lane, Cottenham

Description

The medieval manor house of Crowlands stood within a rectangular moat 36.5 by 42.5 m. (120 by 140 ft.) south of Broad Lane. A larger moat adjacent on the north-west side, 114.5 by 76 m. (375 by 250 ft.), presumably surrounding the outbuildings, was destroyed in C20. The hall was mentioned in 1267-8. The house and farm buildings, then under lease, were extensively rebuilt in the mid 1450s: they included a hall, kitchen, bakehouse, granary, great barn, sheephouse, and kilnhouse. Then or later the house was moved from the moated site towards High Street, where in 1987 stood a late C17 farmhouse of two bays, with C19 and C20 extensions. No C15 work has been found in that house, but discarded medieval masonry, allegedly of C14 doorway, was discovered nearby in 1904. (VCH 1989)

It was on the death of this Ingulph that Geoffrey (or Geoffrid) prior of St Evroul in Normandy was summoned by Henry I, to succeed him at Croyland---To the Croyland Manor at Cottenham he is said to have sent Gilbert (de Cottenham (afterwards Abbot of Westminster. He died in 1140))---together with 3 companions...The particular habitation where they sojourned had been erected in 1032 by Brihtmer, the Abbot...The ground in question is a spot of considerable interest owing to the fact that it is none other than that which comprised the elevated earthwork surrounded by a moat---the remains of a feudal stronghold, which in all probability occupied a much earlier entrenched position, enclosed by a double moat (p66). It appears to have formed one of a series of defensive earthworks, a conspicuous example of which is to be found at Rampton (a little to the SE of the church and in line with the corresponding fortified enclosure at Cottenham). (Cambs HER)