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Summary

Medieval homestead moat of apparently double form

Monument Types

• MOAT (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1500 AD)

Protected Status

• SHINE: Medieval Moated Site, Pancake Hall, Welham Green

Full description

Homestead moat, waterfilled N, W & SW arms, c.10m wide. No NE arm. Overall size c.50m x c.60m. Island featureless in 1975. Occupation started c.1300 with wooden buildings and a gatehouse, but these were abandoned in the 14th century. A medieval silver penny and 13th to 16th century pottery were found in excavation <1>.
The N arm is now infilled and the W one forms a track. There is now a barn on the island <2>.
A 1946 air photo clearly shows a greater extent of the site as a damp mark. There appear to be two moated islands. The main one, described above, shows as a complete rectangle with an island area of approximately 1500 sq. m, its SW arm extending to the S. The moat appears to be between 7 and 10m wide. The second island is a D-shaped extension to the NE with an area of approximately 450 sq. m. It too has an arm extending to the SE <3>.
The 1870s OS map <4> shows a nearly square slightly raised platform, surrounded by the moat on the west, north and east sides; the eastern arm widened into a pond. In the later 20th century a large barn (at Moat Farm, a 20th century farmstead) was constructed across both moat and platform.
The site has been known as Pancake Hall, which was a post-medieval house on the other side of the road without any apparent connection with the moat; see [30750]. This was a small hamlet on the waste along the historic course of Dixon's Hill Road, and the presence of the moat implies a medieval origin for settlement here.

HADAS fieldsheets; Barnet & DRS typescript (Unpublished document). SHT4046.

RAF, 1947, Moat at Welham Green, PNO 8895 (Aerial Photograph). SHT16134.

<1> Kent, J P C, 1950-51, Pancake Hall, Welham Green: excavation of homestead moat; Trans East Herts Archaeol Soc 13/1, 33-43 (Article in serial). SHT8412.

<2> Cave-Penny, Helena (HCC) site report, 22.5.86 (Unpublished document). SHT4214.

<3> Hunns, Terry, RAF air photos in Herts County Record Office, digitized and interpreted, 3220 (CPE/UK/1965) (Aerial Photograph). SHT4312.

<4> OS 25 inch map, 1st edition, 1873-80 (Cartographic material). SHT8116.

Sources and further reading

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