Scheduled Ancient Monument: MOATHILL BARN MOATED SITE (30568)

The monument includes a moated site located to the north west of Westhorpe village, about 1.1km from Westhorpe Hall moated site, the subject of a separate scheduling, and 185m south of Westhorpe Lodge Farm. The moat, which ranges in width from approximately 7.5m on the east side to 15m on the south, surrounds a trapezoidal central island with a maximum internal length of 65m north west-south east and a width of 65m at the northern end narrowing to approximately 38m. A causeway across the northern end of the western arm of the moat is not shown on a map made in 1842 and therefore is thought not to be original. The northern arm of the moat and the northern end of the eastern arm have been largely infilled, although the outer edges are still clearly defined. The remainder, although silted, is seasonally wet. The moated site is within what is understood to have been the area of a medieval and Tudor deer park associated with Westhorpe Hall, near what was probably the western boundary, and was perhaps the site of a park keepers house. Westhorpe Lodge and several of the old names of the surrounding fields, such as Pale Close and Great and Little Lawn, relate to features of this park, and 19th century maps show a series of curving boundaries such as are characteristic of medieval parks and may originally have demarcated parts of the park boundary and the boundaries of compartments within it. In 1537, when Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk owned Westhorpe Hall, the park was stocked with 100 red deer and 200 fallow deer and noted as `ffyne ffedynge grounde'. Farm buildings on the central island, yard surfaces and a service pole are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath them is included.