Moat Lane in Birmingham’s city centre and the Moat House in Sutton Coldfield recall what used to be, their moats being no longer extant. Other moats are dry and the only water they see is rainfall while other moats are merely small stretches of ditches, sometimes wet, sometimes dry. All these disappointments demand the recording of the remaining substantial wet moats for fear that these parts of our history and landscape will be lost without trace.Sir Edward Coke said “a man’s house is his castle” and the reality of this is enhanced if you can retire to your pile and pull up the drawbridge behind you as at Mannington Hall (Norfolk). Likewise does the owner of Peddimore Hall (Warwickshire), albeit it is somewhat anachronistic, given the drawbridge is electronically operated.
Be that as it may, in earlier days a castle increased its security with a surrounding ditch that was filled with water and many a film has romantically resounded to the clopping of a Knight’s steed crossing over the moat into the castle, the obligatory damsel having been rescued from her distress.
Today rather than castles being occupied by knights in armour, they can just as easily belong to rock musicians wearing bass guitars, such as the Rolling Stones Bill Wyman who lives in the moated Gedding Hall (Suffolk).
It is true that Gedding is not a castle. However it is not just castles that were fortified as many a manor house was in need of defence and a number were given wet moats, such as Markenfield Hall (Yorkshire). After the War of the Roses and the turbulence of the Civil War, the need and justification for fortification reduced dramatically. Even so, the prestige and the appeal of being King of the Castle has not diminished and there is the reality created in the 1990s by John Mew who built Braylsham Castle (Sussex)in a mixture of styles and it sits in the middle of a moat.
Ecclesiastic properties can also be found within a moat, such as the Bishop’s Palace in Wells; the ‘church’ at times having felt itself to be vulnerable to attack, not least from Henry VIII.
The reason for moats may not be entirely to keep high-spending and heir-sick monarchs at bay. More everyday reasons were to keep wild animals out, to act as firebreaks, to provide water for livestock (and people if there was no well)or to stock fish and fowl to act as a food source for the castle, court, hall or house. However, given that moats received much of the effluence too, the hygienic practicalities of some of these other purposes must be in doubt.
One moat that had a most unusual purpose is in the north west of Worcestershire but it is now dry. Be that as it may, it is worth recording for on its island was a icehouse and its contents were ferried to the local manor house via a timber bridge, the supports of which still remain.
Within England there are some sumptuous examples of moated properties, such as Hever and Leeds castles in Kent. Then there are the superb ones in the care of the National Trust, namely Ightam Mote (Kent), Oxburgh and Little Morton Halls (Norfolk and Cheshire respectively) and Bodiam Castle (Sussex).
As for this website, it concentrates on moated properties in the Midlands, mainly in Warwickshire and Worcestershire where there are some very fine examples that are quintessentially England. The list is not exhaustive but those included are sometimes private houses, sometimes castles open to the public at certain times; others are farms and yet others are hotels. Whatever the use of the buildings, all the moats are wet and long may they remain so.
