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A Homestead Moat at Nuthampstead, Hertfordshire
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2012
Extract
A small moated site in Scales Park near the village of Nuthampstead, Hertfordshire (fig. 1), has lately been examined by the Ancient Monuments Department of the Ministry of Works. It lies just within the Hertfordshire-Essex boundary, four miles north-east of Buntingford and eight miles north-west of Bishop's Stortford. On the O.S. 6-in. sheet (Herts. 9 NE.) it is marked as The Warren, but not as an antiquity; nor is it included among the 139 homestead moats recorded for the county by the Royal Commission.
Scales Park comprises something over 400 acres of well-grown woodland on the plateau which forms the watershed of the rivers Stort and Quin, both flowing south to join eventually the Thames. Its height above sea-level is 450 ft. on the northwest, declining gently to 400 ft. on the east and south. Geologically the area consists of chalky clay over the chalk.
The moat of the Warren, enclosing an approximately square island about a quarter of an acre in size, varied in width from 10 to 25 ft. and at the time of excavation was filled with black boggy silt. Round its outer edge ran a low much-spread bank, 20 to 30 ft. wide but not more than 2 ft. high. The enclosure presented a puzzling combination of mounds and hollows. A large mound, 9 ft. 6 in. high, on a raised platform occupied the north-eastern half. The south-western half had centrally a similar platform, 5 ft. above the surface of the moat, with flanking mounds, 6 and 7 ft. high, at the corners (pl. xxiv b). The cavities between the mounds were practically level with the moat; slight ridges barred the western hollow and the south end of the eastern hollow.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1946
References
page 141 note 1 See Appendix.
page 141 note 2 Mr. L. F. Cowley writes: ‘The domestic fowl remains were few and very fragmentary, but a portion of the tarso-metatarsus with the skin attached was that of a cock bird. Besides a portion of rib, the horse was represented by a portion of the left tibia: this belonged to an immature animal.’
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page 142 note 2 Surrey Arch. Coll. 1941, pp. 61 ff.
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