Scheduled Ancient Monument: MOATED SITE AT CRANLEY HALL (30595)

The monument includes a moated site located on a low spur to the south of Cranley Green Road and east of the site of Eye Park, which was created as a deer park soon after the Conquest. The moat has been partly infilled, but the western arm of it, with the western ends of the northern and southern arms, survives intact as a water-filled feature 11m to 16m wide. Further details are recorded on a map made in 1626 which depicts the longer, eastern part of the northern arm, with an entry or causeway about 22m wide flanked by spurs of the moat about 18m long which project outwards from the northern arm on either side. The projecting spur on the eastern side of the causeway survives as a water-filled feature although it has been enlarged externally to form a pond. Its west and south sides, however, preserve the internal angle between the spur and the main body of the northern arm to the east of it. The eastern arm, and all but the western end of the southern arm had evidently been infilled before the map was made and are not shown on it, but their probable line is indicated on the map by boundary fences and is still indicated on the eastern side by a depression in the ground surface which marks the site of an an infilled pond. The infilled parts of the moat, although no longer visible, will survive as buried features. The moat originally enclosed a quadrangular island approximately 70m in length WNW-ESE and widening from 18m at the western end to about 45m at the eastern end. Cranley Hall, which is a Listed Building Grade II* dated to the 16th century, stands opposite the original entrance to the moated site. In addition to this building the 17th century map depicts various other features within the moated site, including a small walled courtyard and gate on the north side of the house, an outbuilding in a small enclosure to the south east of the house, a dovecote alongside the northern arm of the moat to the north east, and a formal parterre between the house and the western arm of the moat. The remains of these are believed to survive as buried features. In addition, evidence for occupation of the site in the medieval period is provided by finds discovered in the area of the infilled southern arm of the moat, including a medieval dagger and 15th century pottery. The moated site is identified as that of a medieval manor house named after the de Cranley family who held it in the late 13th and 14th centuries. In the mid-16th century it was in the possession of Nicholas Everard, and around 1625 it was bought by Myles Edgar, for whom the map of 1626 was made. Cranley Hall, a garden house which is a Listed Building Grade II dated to the 18th century, together with modern farm buildings and other outbuildings including the remains of a greenhouse, garden walls, fences and gates, modern track surfaces, service poles, clothes line poles, the supports for an oil tank, inspection chambers and a sewage treatment plant in the area of the south arm of the moat, are excluded from the scheduling, however the ground beneath all these features is included.