Moat House

Moat House is a house dating primarily to the late 14th century, with alterations made around 1600 and in the 17th century. It is timber-framed with plastered infill, although parts have been rebuilt: the left-hand end wall in dressed grey sandstone, the right-hand end wall in roughly dressed sandstone and rendered brick, and elsewhere using rendered rubble with painted imitation framing. The roof is covered in plain tiles. The house originally comprised a two-bay open hall to the left, with a narrower screens bay and a service bay to its left. The framing features closely-spaced uprights with two rails. It has two storeys and a gable-lit attic. A stone ridge stack sits slightly off-centre to the right, with a rendered brick shaft, and there is a rendered external end stack to the right. The front has three windows, with some mid- to late 19th-century and 20th-century wooden and wooden-framed metal casements. A segmental head appears over the ground floor windows to the right. A 20th-century nail-studded boarded door is positioned off-centre to the right and is sheltered by a 19th-century gabled timber-framed porch, which includes cusped angle braces and open sides with cast-iron lattice windows. Evidence suggests a probable blocked former first-floor window to the left with two shaped-headed lights, and a probable blocked inserted first-floor three-light window to the right. Mortices in the frame posts show evidence of a former, probably 16th-century, two-storey porch in front of the screens bay, off-centre to the left.

Inside, the lower end has large 14th-century ceiling joists, chamfered over the former screens passage. Around 1600, a floor was inserted into the two-bay hall, also with chamfered beams. A large, approximately 1600 stack includes two dressed grey sandstone, chamfered Tudor-arched fireplaces. A moulded doorway was inserted around 1600 in the lower end. Remaining elements of a 14th-century screen include a cusped brace – mortices indicate that this formed one of a pair of open quatrefoil panels flanking the central entrance to the hall. Two first-floor fireplaces dating from around 1600 are chamfered stone. Old doors are present throughout the house. A fine 14th-century smoke-blackened roof is a particularly notable feature: it has a billet-decorated frieze. The trusses have chamfered brackets with moulded capitals; the central hall truss elaborately decorated with carved head corbels. The central hall truss also has moulded main posts and braces, a moulded tie beam, queen struts, collar and cusped v-struts. Arch braces are chamfered, with cusped v-struts. Sets of three chamfered butt purlins with chamfered cusped wind braces are found alongside a spere truss with queen struts and v-struts. Pairs of purlins with wind braces are present over the lower end.

The house may have been built for Edward de Acton, whose descendants lived there from 1377 to 1610. Originally, the house was potentially larger, possibly with cross wings, and it was likely the centre of a larger complex of buildings. It sits within a large, roughly rectangular moat with a fishpond to the east.