Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

Moated site, two fishponds and associated earthworks at Knight House Farm

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1018635
Date first listed:: 17-Oct-1976

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1018635
Date first listed:: 17-Oct-1976
Date of most recent amendment:: 15-Feb-1999

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: Somerset (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Cudworth
National Grid Reference:: ST 37279 10784

Reasons for Designation

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 central and eastern parts of England. However, moated sites were built throughout the medieval period, are widely scattered throughout England and exhibit a high level of diversity in their forms and sizes. They form a significant class of medieval monument and are important for the understanding of the distribution of wealth and status in the countryside. Many examples provide conditions favourable to the survival of organic remains.

The moated site at Knight House Farm is one of relatively few recorded examples in south west England. It also possesses contemporary document records giving details of the site's occupation and use. Together with the two fishponds and associated subsidiary linear earthworks, the moated site survives well and will provide archaeological remains and environmental evidence relating both to the monument and the landscape in which it was constructed.

Details

The monument includes a medieval moated site, two fishponds and associated earthworks at Knight House Farm, south of St Michael's Church, Cudworth. The site is situated on low lying ground to the west of Wall Brook in an area of undulating hills and coombes rising steeply to the south and declining gradually to the north towards Ilminster. The moated site is on the east side of the monument, south of the church, and includes a sub-circular central platform 50m across elevated above the surrounding ground level. It is enclosed by a moat with an average depth of 5.5m and an average width of 5m across the base and an external bank on the west, south and south east sides rising to 5m above the base of the moat. The bank on the north has been truncated by the hedge which encloses part of the churchyard, and on the east by a field boundary hedge. There are no indications that the earthworks at the moated site extend beyond these boundaries. A 4m wide causeway near the north west corner of the moat is probably an original entrance. Matthew de Esse held this manor in 1303 and it has been recorded that in 1333 a licence was granted for an oratory within his widow's house which documentary evidence suggests was located south of the present church in the area of the moated site, although this has no visible surviving features. Also included in the monument and probably contemporary with the moated site, are two rectangular fishponds, aligned north to south. The more substantial fishpond is located south of the smaller one and west of the moat. It appears as a depression 52m long and by 38m wide and is up to 5m deep below a surrounding bank which survives up to 10m wide on the east and up to 16m wide on the north where a break in the bank links it to the bank on the south west corner of the smaller fishpond. Subsidiary earthworks survive adjacent to the south and east bank of the larger fishpond which may represent part of the original water management system. The second fishpond is 13m wide, 56m long, and survives as a depression up to 1m deep. The remains of the east bank have been incorporated into the hedge which encloses the churchyard. All fence posts and water troughs are excluded from the scheduling although the ground beneath these features is included.

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

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 32157
Legacy System:: RSM

Legal

This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.