Monument record HTC 005 - Oak Tree Farm

Moat. Square, seasonally wet, with arms circa 50m long x circa 8m wide. Entrance on E side - this side also shows signs of some mutilation by later drainage channels. Interior unoccupied and ploughed. C13 - C15 and PMed pottery, brick, peg tiles, lava millstone recovered from the site. Isolated position 250m from parish boundary, 3.4km from church. Close to boundary with Buxhall and Great Finborough.
Site recorded as Nectons (1544, 1608/9), Naytones, Nytones (1615), Old-house Barn (1837, 1892), Oak Tree Farm (1912.
A freehold farm of 60 acres (1608/9) held in C14 and C15 by the Necton family, who probably built the moat. Owned but not occupied by the Spring family of Lavenham and Pakenham in C16. Owned and occupied by the Death family in C17, who probably rebuilt a house on the site (reference to a tiled barn here in 1615, possibly the one still surviving to the SE of the moat). By 1772 the moat was unoccupied and only the barn remained. Present farmhouse built to the S of the moat in 1880.
Early deeds at SRO (Ipswich) HAI/F/5/1-22; estate map 1772 HAI/HB4/2. Moat shown on Tithe Map 1841. Pond to N of moat shown on 1841 Tithe map but not on 1772 estate map; pond to E of barn shown on 1772 map.
House on the moated island shown on a map of 1741 (S2).