Monument record MDO1870 - Shrunken medieval settlement around Moigne Court, Owermoigne

Earthworks to the north and west of the moat around Moigne Court. These have been interpreted as the enclosures of medieval settlement. Earthworks associated with the settlement are visible on aerial photographs of the 1940s.

Earthworks to the north and west of the moat around Moigne Court. These have been interpreted as the enclosures of medieval settlement. Historic descriptions refer to the removal of 'extensive remains of foundations' from this area, with the foundations of a possible chapel just to the west. Excavations of a small part of the site in the early 1970s revealed buildings interpreted as a farmhouse with associated stables and cow-shed, and thought to be of Tudor date. (1-2)

Earthworks associated with the settlement described above in (1-2) are visible on aerial photographs of the 1940s around Moigne Court. The earthworks consist of possible building platforms with hollow ways around them and banked enclosures. (3) These features were digitally plotted as part of the Wild Purbeck Mapping Project.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 1, 185-186 (Monograph). SDO148.

'A series of enclosures E. of the moat, in pasture, is surrounded by a ditch and, for most of the perimeter, by an inner bank 3 ft. high. ‘Extensive remains of foundations’ were removed apparently from the area of these enclosures, and foundations of a supposed chapel, of which there is now no sign, were just W. of them (Hutchins I, 457-8).'

<2> Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1974, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1973, 101 (Serial). SDO73.

INTERIM REPORT ON EXCAVATIONS AT MOIGNE COURT, OWERMOIGNE, 1973
Summary of Previous Excavations [Footnote 49: This summary is based on short progress reports published by the Department of the Environment in “Archaeological Excavations 1971” and ibid. 1972 (H.M.S.O.), contributed respectively by Mr D. J. Viner and Mr P. R. Walker, and on further information from the latter – R. A. H. Farrar]
In 1971, in advance of levelling operations, the ditch of the enclosure bank surrounding most of the earthworks of c. 4-5 acres associated with the moated manor site of Moigne Court (SY 772857) was sectioned and showed evidence for two re-cuts, both undated, and some preliminary work was done on part of one central platform, which proved to be of unitary build, of limestone capped with chalk.

In 1972 this investigation was continued and a second platform was stripped. On the first, Building A, c. 36 by 8 m., with a chalk floor and limestone walls almost totally robbed, had possessed internal wooden partitions and two entrances on the north side, one of them indicated by a burnt wooden door and a large threshold-stone. There was no firm evidence for a date before the late mediaeval or early post-medieval period, but the finds suggested use as a cow-shed and stable. Building B, at right-angles to A and separated from it by a cobbled yard, measured 30 by 7 m. with at least three rooms. Finds, including 15th-century door-keys and a fine bronze stirrup of the 16th/17th century, suggest that the building may, ultimately at least, have been the main dwelling of an emerging late mediaeval yeoman farmer.

Residual Romano-British sherds and pieces of worked Kimmeridge shale were fairly common.

Excavations in 1973
The final season’s excavation confirmed the hypothesis that Building B was the main living-house of a Tudor yeoman farmer. Some 20 m. by 7 m., with walls of random-coursed rubble limestone and flints jointed with lime mortar, the house comprised screens-passage, hall, closet (separated from the hall by a screen), “parlour”, and kitchen. Evidence pointed towards an early 16th century date of construction, with extensive robbing in the late 17th to early 18th century. Most of the walling, the fireplace and the stone door-frame had been totally robbed. Some early woodland window glass, and other glass finds, have been chemically analyzed by Dr. D. C. Watts of Guy’s Hospital Medical School; important light has been shed on manufacturing techniques.

A stable annexe [Footnote 50: Inability to distinguish this feature in 1972 led to the supposition that the house was 27 m. instead of 20 m. long] to the north of the building had an off-centre limestone-paved drain, hard-standing, and timber slots indicating stalls. A roadway to the west was fronted by an entrance near which were found a number of iron and bronze horse-harness buckles, with three iron spurs on a cobbled yard to the north. Small end-wall buttresses were located, one totally robbed-out. This stable would have accommodated the house-hold riding horses, the work horses being housed in Building A, the stable/cow-shed at right-angles to the farmhouse and excavated in 1971-2.

Beneath the Tudor farmhouse were the remains of a Romano-British settlement. A preliminary investigation of the pottery suggests that it flourished during the 3rd and 4th centuries. That these remains were some of the outbuildings of a more imposing structure is suggested by quantities of painted wall-plaster, pegged slate roof-tiles and other building debris, sealed by the floor of the Tudor farmhouse and apparently used by the farmer as make-up. Large quantities of 3rd to 4th-century pottery and some building debris were found in a sondage about 100 m. to the south-east. It is suggested that a substantial structure, possibly a villa, stood over in this part of the field, and provided a source of make-up for the Tudor farmer’s house foundation, and probably also of building stone.

The period between the 4th and the 16th centuries is represented solely by a shallow ditch, which produced 13th-century pottery, and by scattered 15th-century sherds. A silver halfpenny of Richard II belongs to a phase before the Tudor farmhouse.

Worthy of note amongst the finds were a base silver groat of Edward VI, struck in the name of his father, Henry VIII, and dating to 1547-8; a base silver groat of Mary, bent at some stage in the form of a love-token [Footnote 51: The writer is indebted to D J. P. C. Kent of the British Museum for comments on the coins]; sherds of “Donyatt” slip-ware of the 16th/17th centuries similar to wares from the recently excavated Somerset kiln site; an uncommon sherd of delftware from the second half of the 16th century; an intact glass pharmaceutical vial, probably dating to about 1600; and a complete and rare late 16th-century decorated bronze stirrup.

<3> Royal Air Force, 17-JAN-1947, RAF/CPE/UK/1934 1046-7 (Aerial Photograph). SDO13780.

Record last edited

Dec 20 2024 6:51PM