Description:-
Kendall notes that Humberstone seems to have contained two manor houses, The Martival-Hesilrige manor on the western fringe of the Humberstone, and the Hotoft Manor, the location of which is not specified .
Shown on 4th edition OS as moat, but not on 1st ed.
Rahtz identified the Swan's Orchard site with the latter manorial complex, which seems to date from at least the early C12th. Robert Earl of Leicester granted the manor to the de Humets, who were also recorded as having built Humberstone church. It appears to have passed to Leicester Abbey, and then at least in part to the Hotoft family, probably during in the early C14th.
The 'moat' was a large L-shaped ditch 4ft - 7ft deep, with an outer bank. There was a slope on the W side, and a present road defined the N side. The ditch and road enclosed an area of about two acres. The moat was excavated by Philip Rahtz in 1955. He dug a series of trial pits across the platform and a slot trench across the eastern arm of the moat, and then opened up a sizable area to the SW of the platform. He believed that he identified two main phases of occupation in the main excavation area.
1. The main structure was what he described as 'a medieval house'. The date he ascribed to this timber building depended on the identification of pottery. Most of the pottery dated from the early C13th, although there were some sherds of Stamford ware that he believed to date from the first half of the C12th.
1a. Rahtz found a number of features, including a hearth, which post-dated phase 1 and predated phase 2., although as he found no pottery from these features he could not date them reliably.
2. What he identified as a 'Tudor House'.
3. There was also what is described as 'a scatter of later material'.
Rahtz associated the medieval house with the manorial complex of the de Humet family. He suggest that the C12th material might be from and earlier dwelling 'somewhere to the NE'. He says that the moats were not 'true moats, as they were only on two sides of the occupied platforms. Instead he suggests that they were 'a series of fishponds' forming part of the manorial complex .
In 1999 a 'possible linear ditch-type feature' containing 2 sherds of Saxon pottery and 3 sherds of unknown date was identified. |