Blue Man's Bower (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Whiston.
In the historic county of Yorkshire.
Modern Authority of Rotherham.
1974 county of South Yorkshire.
Medieval County of Yorkshire West Riding.

OS Map Grid Reference: SK43858960
Latitude 53.40139° Longitude -1.34206°

Blue Man's Bower has been described as a Fortified Manor House but is rejected as such.

There are earthwork remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

Blue Man's Bower is an unusual example of its class in that a natural feature has been used to create an outer enclosure round the moated site itself. Although no longer wet, its moat and fishponds are sufficiently waterlogged for there to be some survival of organic and palaeoenvironmental material. In addition, despite the 1939 excavation, undisturbed deposits remain on the island and also around it, between the moat and the outer enclosure.
The main component of Blue Man's Bower moated site is a small rectangular island, measuring c.12m x 15m, partially excavated in 1939 by C.E.Whiting. Found at this time were a series of large stones interpreted as padstones for a barn or similar building. The island seems too small, however, to have been the site of a house. Surrounding the island is a 5m wide moat with outer banks to the south-west and south-east and channels leading off at the south and west corners. These connected with a ditch running parallel with the south- west arm of the moat. This ditch, a dried-up stream-bed, indicates that the stream west of the site has been diverted, and that, at the time the moated site was built, it curved round the site as an outer moat instead of running past it north to south. It is crossed by a causeway mid-way between the channels coming off the moat and once connected with a line of infill, visible to the south and now overgrown with trees. Converging with this filled-in section is another line of infill representing a former course of the Ulley Brook along which the parish boundary still runs. Faint earthworks and a line of lush grass running northwards from the confluence, indicate a string of filled-in fishponds running north-south across the bend in the stream, thereby creating a bow- shaped outer enclosure round the moated site. The northernmost fishpond is still visible as a rectangular reed-filled depression measuring c.50m x 15m. (Scheduling Report)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1012201, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number 13232
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 316320.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 00260/01.

Books
- Sneyd, Steve, 1995, The Devil's Logbook Castles and Fortified Sites around South Yorkshire (Hilltop Press) p. 7
  Le Patourel, H.E. Jean, 1973, The Moated Sites of Yorkshire (The Society for Medieval Archaeology Monograph Series 5) p.
  Armitage and Montgomerie, 1912, in Page, Wm (ed), VCH Yorkshire Vol. 2 p. 54
Periodical Articles
- Whiting, C.E., 1938-43, 'Excavations at Blue Man's Bower' Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society Vol. 5 p. 117-

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

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.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
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