MONUMENT NO. 365543

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DESCRIPTION

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Medieval manorial complex and ?associated gardens.

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(TL 2657 3610) Palace (NR) (site of) Moat (NR) (3 times) (1)

The site of a manor house apparently owned by one of the Bishops of Chester, hence the description "palace". The earthworks consist of an inner and surrounding enclosures defended by ditches along with an innermost square enclosure. The NW angle and much of the N side have been altered by the construction of a modern house and garden. (ONBs destroyed). (2-3)

"There was probably a mansion or manor house at Bygrave at an early date. Possibly it was at the house that Edward I stopped on his way to St Albans in January 1299 and April 1302." (There is no evidence in the manorial history of Bygrave to suggest it
ever belonged to a Bishop of Chester) (4)

No trace of the palace, and no further information about it and it is not shown on the Enclosure Map (1808). The published site lies beneath the lawns of a modern house.

There is considerable doubt that the two broad ditches, now mainly dry, which occur around the palace site are in fact moats. The difference in height on the outer ditch between TL 2663 3611 and TL 2651 3604 is about 5.0m, therefore it cannot have held standing water. In places it is only about 6.0m wide and 0.8m deep; hardly a protection or a defence.

The inner ditch forming two sides of a square which was once an ornamental garden, may well have been associated with the garden. It is circa 8.0m wide and up to 1.8m deep. From the N extremity of the E arm (at TL 2661 3608) the ground slopes down to the church and it is impossible that a wet moat around the 'palace' could have existed.

Published survey (25") revised. (5)

"Pentagonal ditched enclosure round a square moat immediately south of the parish church... To the west is a triangular ditched area which, with a larger rectangular one to the east, makes the whole complex a 'double square'. John de Thornebury had licence to crenellate two houses at Bygrave in 1386."

(Not listed in Renn's 'Norman Castles in Britain,' 1971). (6)

SOURCE TEXT

( 1) Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date)

OS 6" 1960 (Prov)

( 2) Transactions of the East Hertfordshire Archaeological Society

H C Andrews 4, 1908-11 Page(s)280-99

( 3) Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England) 1910 An inventory of the historical monuments in Hertfordshire

Page(s)75-6

( 4a) General reference

Enclosure Map 1808

( 4) edited by William Page 1912 The Victoria history of the county of Hertford, volume three

The Victoria history of the counties of England Page(s)215

( 5) Field Investigators Comments

F1 NKB 16-MAR-73

( 6) General reference

Mediaeval Castles in Hertfordshire 1971 16 (D Renn)

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