Scheduled Ancient Monument: MOATS HALL MOATED SITE (30523)

The monument includes the moated site of a former rectory, situated 450m west of the church of St Cross on the south side of the valley of The Beck, a minor tributary of the River Waveney which runs 1km to the north west. The moat, which ranges from approximately 6m to 9m in width and remains open to a depth of up to 2m, surrounds the western, southern and eastern sides and the north eastern corner of a sub-rectangular central platform with maximum internal dimensions of 87m east-west by 50m. The part of the northern arm of the moat which remains visible, extending westwards from the north east angle, is approximately 25m in length, open to a depth of around 1m, and is dry. Immediately to the west of this section is a sub-rectangular hollow, measuring approximately 25m east-west by 22m and up to 0.5m in depth, which is thought to represent an infilled moat terminal which was enlarged on the outer side to form a pond. This will survive as a buried feature and is included in the scheduling. Adjoining it to the west there will have been a causeway giving access to the interior. Much of the eastern arm of the moat is seasonally wet and the southern arm, part of which is said to have been redug to make a garden water feature, remains water-filled, fed by surface drainage. Towards the southern end of the eastern arm there is a bay approximately 8m wide and 5m deep in the outer edge, and at the western end of the southern arm, projecting from the outer edge, the remains of an external pond are visible as a hollow in the ground surface measuring approximately 9m north-south by 4m. The northern end of the western arm has been infilled, but the buried remains are marked by a slight linear depression in the surface of the track which crosses it. The central platform is raised at the southern end approximately 0.3m above the level of the prevailing ground surface, and buried structural remains have been observed on the eastern part of it. The former rectory, which stands on on the northern side, is of 19th century date, and was built to replace an earlier house on the site. This building is excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath it is included. The monument is one of several rectorial moated sites in the different parishes which made up the manor of South Elmham. The manor was held in the later 11th century by the Bishop of Thetford, and subsequently, until the Reformation, by the Bishops of Norwich, one of whose country seats was at South Elmham Hall, 1.4km to the south east. The other rectorial moated sites and the moated site at South Elmham Hall are the subjects of separate schedulings The house, the adjoining outbuildings, yard walls and surfaces, the supports for an oil tank, inspection chambers, the surfaces of driveways, all fence and gateposts, the supports of a rustic pergola, service poles with associated stays, and the pipes and concrete and brick outlets of drains which issue into the western arm of the moat, are excluded from the scheduling although the ground beneath all these features is included.