Monument record MDO4676 - Moat at Bere Marsh Farm, Shillingstone

Moat, possibly the site of the Manor House of the lost Manor of Bere. A moated site with an infilled pond to the west, fed by a series of water channels to the west and south, are visible as earthworks on 1940s aerial photographs and Environment Agency lidar imagery. The features were digitally plotted during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project.

ST 82101225 The level interior of this homestead moat, measures 24m square; (0.05 ha). There is no sign of a causeway across the ditch, which is water filled on the north, west, and south arms. The moat is now fed by a spring adjacent to the west arm and drained by a channel at its south east corner. (Detail obscured by vegetation on OS air photographs (OS 75/371/027-28). The rectangular area to the west, measuring 30m by 8.5m is marked as a pond on the OS 25". It is now infilled with banks, 6.0m wide and 0.5m high to east and west. Two dry drainage channels lead into it from the north west and it opens onto a third to the south. Surveyed at 1:2500 on MSD. (Chaplin 1978)

A moated site with an infilled pond to the west, fed by a series of water channels to the west and south, are visible as earthworks on 1940s aerial photographs and Environment Agency lidar imagery (RAF 1947; RAF 1947; EA 2018). The moated site comprises a sub-square scarped and banked enclosure 70m by 7m in size, with a ditch around a 39.5m by 39.5m central mound, the ditch being wider at the south east corner, where it drains into a ditched water channel. To the west of the moat is an infilled pond fed and drained to the west and south by a series of water channels and drainage ditches. The water channels associated with the moated site appear to continue eastwards towards the River Stour (recorded separately as MDO49621), now truncated by the railway line. To the north of the moated site further ditched linear earthworks might be part of a historic trackway. The features were digitally plotted during the Mid Dorset Downs AIM project.

National Record of the Historic Environment, 206217 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey 25-inch map, epoch 2, Dorset XIII.12 Revised: 1901, Published: 1902 (Map). SDO11594.

'Moat'

Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey map 6 inches to 1 mile, 1962 (Map). SDO17338.

ST 82101225 Moat (NR)

Royal Air Force, 07-JAN-1954, F22/58/1332 006-7 (Aerial Photograph). SDO18708.

Royal Air Force, 16-JAN-1947, RAF/CPE/UK/1924 RS 4325 (Aerial Photograph). SDO21493.

Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 241 (Monograph). SDO136.

'(23) Moat, Class A1(a)1, (821122) lies on a river terrace on the W. side of the R. Stour, immediately W. of Bere Marsh Farm. The history of the site is unknown. A few documents refer to the Manor of Bere (Hutchins III, 446-7; Fägersten, 105), none of them earlier than 1384, and the moat is probably the site of the Manor House. The island is almost square, with sides about 55 yds. long, and is completely surrounded by ditches 40 ft. wide and 2 ft. to 3 ft. deep, in part water-filled. Outer banks occur on the N., W. and S. sides, 18 ft. to 23 ft. wide and 1½ ft. high. The bank on the N. is immediately adjacent to the ditch, but to W. and S. spaces 12 ft. to 18 ft. wide intervene between ditch and bank. The interior of the island is flat and no trace of building is seen.

A rectangular area, 30 ft. W. of the moat, is orientated N.-S. and measures 45 ft. by 30 ft.; on the S.W. and E. it is enclosed by banks 10 ft. wide and 2 ft. high but it is open to the N. (R.A.F. CPE/UK 1974: 4172-3).'

Royal Air Force, 23-JAN-1947, RAF/CPE/UK/1944 RP 3332 (Aerial Photograph). SDO21500.

Ordnance Survey, 6.6.75, OS 75/371/027-28 (Aerial Photograph). SDO18707.

Chaplin, C P, Various, Ordnance Survey Archaeology Division Field Investigator's Comments CC, F1 CC 30-MAR-78 (Unpublished document). SWX3450.

Environment Agency, xx-xxx-2018, Environment Agency National Lidar Programme DTM 1M (Aerial Photograph). SDO21483.

Record last edited

Nov 26 2025 2:00PM