Monument record CRO 001 - Crowfield Park

Moat. Trapezoid, wet, uninhabited, isolated. Next to All Saint's Church.
1972: Still waterfilled, measuring overall circa 80m NE & SW and circa 72m NW-SE with arms circa 10m in width. an entrance causeway in the NE arm gives access to the centred area occupied by an overgrown orchard, where there is no trace of a building (S1).
1989: Geophysical survey identified a few anomalies of potential archaeological origin (S3).
2008-9:. Excavation. It is named as The Island in the tithe apportionment and is the site of the original Crowfield Hall – the Crowfield Hall that was demolished in 1829 was formerly known as Bocking Hall and lies across the field to the S.W. of this site. The two manors represented by these halls appear to have resulted from a division of a single holding in the 13th century; in 1302/3 one half belonged to the rich Ipswich merchant Philip Harneys and the other to Nicholas de Bokkynge. The moated ‘mansion’ of Croffeld Halle, associated with the manor of Croffeld Harneys, was leased in 1438 by John Wodehouse sq. to Robert Cachepool of Stonham Aspal, husbandman.
A trench across the site of the one structure shown on the N.E. corner of the island on 19th-century maps confirmed that it dated from the 17th to the 19th centuries and that it was probably an estate cottage (the land to the west being previously part of Crowfield Park). The main excavations have been concentrated in the S.W. corner and revealed building foundations, together with 12th -14th century pottery, with a few sherds perhaps slightly earlier and later (S2).

Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2008 (S4).