Monument record PSM 002 - Priory Farm

Moat, single E-W arm. Possible remains of S arm also.
Situated on W edge of village, 900m from church.
Marked as `moat' on OS 1:10560 map. Elongated, roughly rectangular, piece of pasture with a large ditch on the north and partial remains of a similar ditch on the south side. The present farmhouse is at the western end of this pasture. Within the pasture, backing onto the north ditch, is a timber- framed barn. To the east of the barn is a roughly rectangular raised platform, surrounded by a depression on three sides, the fourth side being the northern ditch. There are other humps and bumps and possible divisions in the pasture. At the east end is a slight circular depression, said to be the site of a windmill (S2).
Priory Manor, held in the C13 by the Mendham and Walsham families (probably as under-tenants of the de Veres, the holders of the main Preston Manor - echoing the situation in Mendham) is said to have been granted by Thomas de Mendham to Holy Trinity Priory, Ipswich; the Priory was holding the estate by 1331. After the Dissolution of the Priory in 1537, this manor was granted, in 1543, to Andrew Judde, and almost immediately regranted to Robert Spring of Lavenham (S3).

1998: Excavation identified a Saxon ditch. The trench across the earthwork identified a circular feature comprising a central circular pit, a circle of post holes and an outer circular depressing of a windmill structure. Post medieval features of ditches and a 20th century water pip. Further excavation in 2003 investigated the circular structure. This identified a 4.5 metre diameter circular pit, with a central post hole and was interpreted as the base of a sunken-post mill. A shallow depression concentric to the pit was thought to represent a track around the edge which the tail-pole would be walked to turn the mill into the wind. Shallow post-holes around the edge of the central pit were interpreted as the settings for revetting at the base of the mount. Artefactual evidence, principally ceramics, suggested the mill dated to the late 12th or 12th century. (S8).

Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2003 (S9)