Details

The monument includes extensive earthwork and buried remains of the medieval
village of Moulton, including a moated site, a possible mill site and parts of
the surrounding medieval field system. It is located in undulating land in
the Vale of Mowbray and lies in fields immediately around the present village.
The monument is divided into four separate areas of protection. One area
occupies the fields immediately west of the current village and to the south
and east of Moulton Hall, and contains part of the core of the settlement, the
remains of the moated site and part of the surviving field system. The second
area occupies the fields north of the current village and contains the
remainder of the core of the settlement and remains of the field system. The
third area occupies the field east of the road north to Middleton Tyas and
contains remains of the field system. The fourth area occupies the paddock in
the centre of the current village and contains further remains of the medieval
settlement and the suggested site of a mill. The settlement lay at the head of
a shallow valley with the core of the settlement lying on a prominent bluff to
the west and the mill and moated site lying on the lower ground to the south
east where a manageable water supply was available. Earthwork remains of these
features are clearly visible both on the ground and on aerial photographs.
Further remains of the settlement and field system are visible on early aerial
photographs lying adjacent to the monument. These have been reduced by
agricultural activity and are not included in the monument.
The form of the surviving medieval village remains indicate that it was a
planned village built after the `Harrying of the North' in 1069/70, when a
rebellion by the native population against the Norman invasion was suppressed
with great ferocity causing widespread devastation throughout the land. Such
regular planned settlements were then built throughout the region. The first
currently known documentary record of the village of Moulton is the Domesday
Book in 1086 when the lordship of the manor was held by Alan, a Norman Count,
and it is recorded that four villagers and four small-holders were resident.
It is known that in 1285 land in the village was held by the Abbot of
Eggleston and by the Knights Templar. A survey in 1301 recorded 20 names in
the village. In the 13th century a cell of the French Abbey of Bagard was
established at Moulton. The chapel for this survives as an occupied building
to the north east of the Manor House, although it is not included in the
scheduling. By the mid-14th century Moulton, in common with other villages in
the area, suffered a decline in fortune due to bad harvests, disease and raids
by the Scots and around this time the original medieval settlement was
abandoned. The focus of the settlement then shifted to the south east around
a green straddling the north-south route way. The exact nature and date of
this re-location is not yet known. In the 17th century two grand houses, the
Manor House and Moulton Hall, were built to the south of the green.
The medieval village took the form of two rows of opposing buildings lying to
the north and south of a village street. This street remains in use as the
main east to west route through Moulton. The buildings stood adjacent to the
village street and within a set of regular enclosures known as tofts. These
had larger enclosures extending to the rear, the whole being known as a
tenement. The tofts contained dwellings and other buildings in a small
enclosure or yard with the croft to the rear being used for domestic
horticulture and stock keeping. In common with other settlements in the area
the village was on a spur off the main north-south route.
The area between the rows of tenements has been substantially disturbed by
later quarrying. This has resulted in a quarry face up to 3m in height cut up
to 20m deep into the north row. The southern row has been cut back by up to
10m leaving a quarry face up to 1m in height.
The remains of the village survive as prominent earthworks standing up to
0.5m high. The northern row of the village includes at least eight tofts
measuring up to 20 sq m in size. At the western end of this row the remains of
the buildings fronting the street survive but further east these have been
destroyed by quarrying. At the rear of the tofts are remains of
rectangular buildings such as sheds and barns. The crofts to the rear on
the north row are shorter in length, their extent being dictated by the
natural slope to the north.
The row of tenements to the south follow the same pattern with the quarrying
action having partly destroyed the street frontage. The surviving earthworks
include clearly defined tofts up to 20 sq m with buildings at their rear.
Also within the tofts are prominent divisions dividing the area into smaller
enclosures. Within some of the buildings features such as internal divisions
and doorways can be identified. Beyond these lie the crofts which are
preserved as long narrow fields separated by earthen banks measuring up to 70m
in length.
The field system associated with the medieval village survives as large blocks
of linear, parallel earthworks known as ridge and furrow. Within these areas
are surviving features such as headlands and balks which divided the fields
into sections. Also within the field system there are remains of field barns
and stack stands where recently harvested crops would be stored to dry.
Remains of the field system survive to the rear of the medieval settlement
north of Barley Garth and to the west of the Manor House. Further substantial
remains of the field system survive to the east of Moulton Hall Farm. Here the
ridges measure up to 12m from centre to centre and stand 0.4m high. Further
substantial remains of the field system occupy the field to the north east of
the current village.
In the paddock in the centre of the current village there are a series of low
earthworks which appear to be associated with water management. It is
suggested that these may be associated with the site of a medieval mill.
The moated site is located in the northern part of the field east of Moulton
Hall. It includes a substantial platform measuring 38m north-south by 30m
east-west. It is enclosed on the northern, western and southern sides by a
ditch measuring 4m wide and 1.2m deep. The eastern side is marked by a
substantial bank which extends north to south along the length of the field.
Water was fed into the north eastern corner of the moat from a leat or water
channel extending northwards to the west of the bank. At the south eastern
corner of the moat there is a shallow leat extending east which channelled
water to the stream to the east. The moated site lay on the edge of the
village and probably supported one of the more prestigious dwellings in the
settlement. Such moated sites were often occupied by high status families and
their location can be evidence of wealthy citizens moving to a more prominent
position away from the main settlement.
The bank running north-south extends from the northern edge of the field,
past the moat and continues south for approximately 150m then curves to the
west to the south western corner of the field. For most of its length it
survives as a raised flat-topped earthwork up to 5m wide. As well as
enclosing the moat to the west it also forms the boundary to a well-preserved
block of ridge and furrow opposite Moulton Hall. The bank may have served
several purposes including a track way, flood defences and property boundary.
A number of features are excluded from the monument; these include, all gates,
fences, field and walls, the surface of tracks and roads, road traffic signs,
animal feeding equipment, all garden structures and paths, the animal shelter
in the field north of The Granary and the summerhouse south of the Manor
House, although the ground beneath all these features is included.

MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

Medieval rural settlements in England were marked by great regional diversity
in form, size and type, and the protection of their archaeological remains
needs to take these differences into account. To do this, England has been
divided into three broad Provinces on the basis of each area's distinctive
mixture of nucleated and dispersed settlements. These can be further divided
into sub-Provinces and local regions, possessing characteristics which have
gradually evolved during the past 1500 years or more.
The Yorkshire Dales local region is broadly an extension of the lowlands into
the hill mass of the Pennines, but increasing environmental constraints have
ensured that each dale has developed particular and often wholly local
characteristics. The villages and hamlets on the valley side terraces of the
lower and middle dales appear to be of medieval foundation, while the
surrounding farmstead sites vary greatly in date, from early medieval to 19th
century.

Medieval villages were organised agricultural communities, sited at the centre
of a parish or township, that shared resources such as arable land, meadow
and woodland. Village plans varied enormously, but when they survive as
earthworks their most distinguishing features include roads and minor tracks,
platforms on which stood houses and other buildings such as barns, enclosed
crofts and small enclosed paddocks. They frequently included the parish church
within their boundaries, and as part of the manorial system most villages
included one or more manorial centres which may survive as visible remains as
well as below ground deposits. In the northern province of England, villages
were the most distinctive aspect of rural life, and their archaeological
remains are one of the most important sources of understanding about rural
life in the five or more centuries following the Norman conquest.
Medieval villages were supported by a communal system of agriculture based on
large, unenclosed, open arable fields. These large fields were subdivided into
strips (known as lands) which were allocated to individual tenants. The
cultivation of these strips with heavy ploughs pulled by oxen-teams produced
long, wide ridges, and the resultant `ridge and furrow' where it survives is
the most obvious physical indication of the open field system. Individual
strips or lands were laid out in groups known as furlongs defined by terminal
headlands at the plough turning-points and lateral grass balks. Furlongs were
in turn grouped into large open fields. Well-preserved ridge and furrow,
especially in its original context adjacent to village earthworks, is both an
important source of information about medieval agrarian life and a distinctive
contribution to the character of the historic landscape. It is usually now
covered by the hedges or walls of subsequent field enclosure.
Around 6,000 moated sites are known in England. They consist of wide ditches,
often or seasonally water filled, partly or completely enclosing one or more
islands of dry ground on which stood domestic or religious buildings. In some
cases the islands were used for horticulture. The majority of moated sites
served as prestigious aristocratic and seigneurial residences with the
provision of a moat intended as a status symbol rather than a practical
military defence. The peak period during which moated sites were built was
between about 1250 and 1350 and by far the greatest concentration lies in the
central and eastern parts of England. However, moated sites were built
throughout the medieval period, are widely scattered throughout England and
exhibit a high diversity of forms and sizes. They form a significant class of
medieval monuments and are important for understanding the distribution of
wealth and status in the countryside.
As part of the economic functions of the community most villages contained one
or more watermills. A watermill uses the gravitational force of water to turn
a paddled wheel which enabled the operation of varying kinds of machinery.
The wheel could be set directly into a river or stream or more commonly
powered by water fed through artificial channels. By the time of the Domesday
Book an estimated 6,000 were in existence. During the medieval period mills
were usually used for grinding corn but with technological improvements their
use spread to further agricultural and industrial purposes such as tilt
hammers, bellows and textile processing.
The medieval settlement of Moulton retains important archaeological remains,
both earthwork and buried. The substantial and well-preserved archaeological
remains of the village demonstrate clearly the formal planned settlement
introduced by the Normans in the years after the Conquest. Significant
evidence of the social and economic history of the settlement and its
ultimate decline and abandonment will be preserved.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Books and journals
Grifiths, M, Medieval Settlements in the Tees Lowlands, (1989)
Grifiths, M, Medieval Villages of the Tees Lowlands, (1990)

Source: Historic England