Monument record 1976/1/2 - Belgrave moated site and medieval garden - Moated Site

<1> Turner R C & Sale C B, 1986, A Medieval Garden at the Belgrave Moat, Cheshire, Vol 69 1986, 59-77. (Article in Journal). SCH100.

Belgrave Moated Manor Site. Trapezoidal moat, enclosing a platform of 6,750 square meters. Ditch was V-shaped, 12m wide and up to 2.5m deep. Moat had been dredged in modern times, probably in 1920s. Further dredging in 1985. Causeway in center of east side - shown on Badeslade's map of 1737. Outside the moat and in the center of the west side is an irregular, isolated mound. It is opposite where the moated platform is at its lowest and this may be the site of the original bridge across the moat, the mound carrying a pier or abutment. The moated platform was trenched in March 1986, by R C Turner and C B Sale. A thick layer of buff silt was found across the whole trench and provided a mixture of finds from a flint scraper to post-medieval pottery and many pieces of fired or burnt clay. Also finds of a medieval hearth tile, a piece of green-glazed tile from a louvre or curfew, and iron nails

<2> Ordnance Survey, 1870-1982, Ordnance Survey Archaeological Record Card, SJ36SE2/1964 (Index). SCH2487.

<3> Various, Aerial photographs, 1986 Clywd Powys Archaeological Trust (Aerial Photograph). SCH128.

For our photos, see CPAT 86.MB 276-7 & 88 MB.306

<4> English Heritage, Various, Schedule Entry (Scheduled Ancient Monuments Amendment), 13462 (Scheduling Record). SCH2950.

The monument consists of a rare and unusual example of a moated site flanked on three sides by what limited excavation has proved to be a medieval garden. The site comprised a trapezoidal island c.83-96m x 76-83m currently heavily vegetated by tall grass, nettles and thistle, and surrounded by a predominantly waterlogged moat 12m wide x 2.5m max. depth. Access to the island is presently via a causeway across the E arm, however, there are traces of another causeway across the S arm. In the W arm is an oval mound considered to have carried the pier or abutment of a bridge. The moat is surrounded on its N, W and S sides by a broad berm or bank and an outer ditch. On the S side the berm is flat and extends into the modern field for c.21m to where its 6m wide outer ditch has become flattened. Along the N side there is a narrower but better defined linear bank 12m wide, tree covered, and projecting at the NE corner to form a `horn'. Its outer ditch is still used as a field boundary. The complex in the NW corner is dominated by an almost circular mound 16m dia x 1.8m high and surrounded by a silted ditch 3m wide. Immediately S is a lower triangular earthwork. These features are cut out of the berm forming the W side of the site and the ditches surrounding them are connected to the moat. The outer boundary ditch on the W side is flatter and broader than those on the N and S and resembles a holloway.

Belgrave moat was built at the end of the 13th century by Richard the Engineer, one of Edward I's leading military engineers and the man responsible for much of the work on the Welsh castles at the end of the 13th and into the 14th century. It passed to the family of his daughter by marriage, but by the end of the 14th century is likely to have been abandoned as a residence and farmed by a local family. From then on, and certainly from the beginning of the 17th century, it has not been occupied.

Belgrave moated site remains in good condition and is a rare and unusual example in England of a medieval moated site and associated garden. The documentary evidence indicates the monument was created at the end of the 13th century by a royal servant at the time that the medieval English garden began to flower. Knowledge of gardens of this period is almost entirely documentary thus the extant example at Belgrave offers considerable archaeological potential for gaining information of the flora, layout and other individual elements utilised in creating a medieval garden.