Moated Manors in the Heart of England

By Robert Courts

Nothing is more evocative of an idyllic England than a quiet moated house, timbers and stonework surrounded by rustling leaves, lying in a valley where ancient lanes wind their way through coppiced woods and still meadows. Very few of these defensive houses have survived, and the Heart of England is lucky in having some of the very finest in the country; ones that are not only picturesque but also demonstrate the medieval moated manor at different stages of its life, and all surviving in remarkably good condition.

Perhaps the best-known of these is Baddesley Clinton in Warwickshire. The house nestles in the hollow of the park and slowly emerges as you proceed down the old medieval track, once used for driving the estate's cattle to market in Birmingham. The site was first cleared in Saxon times, when the deep, black and sinister forest of Arden covered North Warwickshire. Plots were cleared in the area, and the original settlement dates from this time, becoming Baddesley Clinton  when the de Clinton family dug the moat in the thirteenth century. The house, now owned by the National Trust, dates from early medieval times and is largely unchanged since the Tudor reigns. John Brome, a wealthy Warwick lawyer, built most of the existing house in stone after 1438, replacing the probable early timber buildings. The house later passed to the Ferrers family, in whose hands it remained for five hundred years. They remodelled the house into the form we see it today, and were staunch Catholics, as is shown by the well preserved and easily viewed priest holes. In the Victorian age the house was refurbished, and the battlements atop the gatehouse were added. The house had a starring role in the Granada Sherlock Holmes episode "The Musgrove Ritual", and is rightly renowned as one of the finest and best preserved of its type in the country.

A good example of what Baddesley Clinton may have looked like in its timber days can be seen at Lower Brockhampton in Herefordshire. This National Trust house, which for picture-postcard looks cannot be beaten, is a genuine medieval survival, almost unaltered, and typifies what all English moated manors must have looked like in early medieval times. The route down the valley goes past the Georgian mansion that replaced the medieval manor, past thick woods and hilly fields down to the still and peaceful timbered house. Architectural evidence suggests that the present house was built between 1380 and 1400, although to the side of the moated site there is a ruined chapel that dates back to about 1180. There would have been a farm here then, just as there is now, which is of course how those original inhabitants would have been employed. In the 1400s, a moat was an important defensive measure that would have afforded protection to cattle in times of trouble, provided a stock of fish, and of course afforded status to the Lord. Originally, the moat would have completely surrounded the house, as does that at Baddesley, but as with so many of these houses one side has been partially filled in so as to provide easier access in less troublesome times. The house itself has one wing with a large and magnificent Great Hall, which is in classic medieval style, open to the ceiling, roofed with massive timbers that would have been felled on the estate, and with a half-storey solar at the end of the hall to provide privacy and sleeping areas for the family. The famously picturesque timber gatehouse is a rare and attractive example, timbered and whitewashed, as is the house. It has two stories, the upper one slightly overhanging the lower, and was probably built around 1530, when the country was relatively peaceful. The gatehouse was most probably a status symbol, as being made of timber and thus prone to fire, it would have been a militarily useless structure.

English Heritage's Stokesay Castle, in Shropshire, now has only a dry moat, which the visitor can walk around, but it is such a unique and remarkable survival that it certainly deserves a mention here. Dwarfed by the ancient hillfort that rises on one side of it and by the distant mountains on the other, it lies in the natural scarp of Wenlock Edge, the gap made by the River Onny; clearly a strategic location. It is not really a castle, but a fortified manor house, and was built in an age when the merchant who built it, Lawrence of Ludlow, was still likely to be attacked by bands of marauding Welsh raiders. Although primarily a domestic house, and its moat not being as wide as that at Baddesley or Brockhampton, it is a substantially stronger house with some defensive capabilities, featuring a strong tower and curtain wall. The timber gatehouse, although impressive, was not a defensive structure, for the same reasons as that at Brockhampton. It is a remarkable building not only because of its attractiveness, but also because of how little it has changed since medieval times. The large, barn-like hall, which would once have been the living and sleeping accommodation for the inhabitants, still retains its central hearth, as it would have done then. The windows are not glazed, but have wooden shutters, just as they would have done when they were built. We are lucky to have such a fine building, and it certainly deserves a visit.

Harvington Hall in Worcestershire is one of the most interesting houses you are ever likely to visit, and visitors must not be put off by the paucity of signposting. A little known house, it appears from round a corner of the little lane, a brick building rising out of a large reeded moat that is more like a small lake. From the outside it appears of medium size, but appearances are deceptive. The building is a deep one, and inside its maze of small rooms and passages, with wooden floors reeling drunkenly in every direction, are the largest number of priest holes in the country, and very clever ones they are too. Of particular note are the swinging panel in Mr Dodd's library and the lifting step on the Great Staircase, which visitors can move themselves to see the cramped space where Catholic priests would once have hidden. Also of interest are the surviving medieval paintings that are on many walls, especially the "Nine Worthies" passage, including illustrations of Guy of Warwick, Samson and Hercules. A privately owned house, now in the care of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, Harvington owes its unsullied survival to its neglect over two centuries. The house has lots of photographs showing the ivy-covered house around 1900, when it was feared that it would fall into ruin. Luckily, however, it was given to the Archdiocese in the 1920s, and the long process of restoration began. It forms just one of the fascinating and evocative group of moated manors in the Heart of England.

© The Copyright of all photographs and text on this site is the author's, 2001/2, who claims the sole right to be identified as the author such work.

This article first appeared in the Heart of England Tourist Board's "Heart" magazine, in Summer 2002.