Moat House

SJ 4800-4900 9/76

LONGNOR Moat House

31.05.74

II* House. Late C14 with c.1600 and C17 alterations. Timber-framed with plastered infill, partly rebuilt in rendered rubble with painted imitation framing; left-hand end wall rebuilt in dressed grey sandstone and right-hand end wall rebuilt in roughly dressed sandstone and rendered brick; plain tile roof. 1:1:2 framed bays; former open hall of two framed bays to left with narrower screens bay and service bay to left.

Framing: closely-spaced uprights with two rails. Two storeys and gable-lit attic. Stone ridge stack just off-centre to right-with rendered brick shaft and rendered external end stack to right. Three window front; two- and three- light mid to late C19 and C20 wooden and wooden-framed metal casements, ground floor to right with segmental head. C20 nail-studded boarded door off-centre to right with C19 gabled timber-framed porch including cusped angle braces and open sides with cast-iron lattice windows. Probable blocked former first floor window to left with two shaped-headed lights and probable blocked inserted first floor three-light window to right; evidence of a former probably C16 two storey porch in front of screens bay off-centre to left (see mortices in frame posts).

INTERIOR: lower end with large C14 joists, chamfered over former screens passage; c.1600 inserted floor in former two bay hall with chamfered beams; large c.1600 inserted stack with two dressed grey sandstone chamfered Tudor-arched fireplaces; inserted c.1600 moulded doorway in lower end; remains of C14 screen including cusped brace (mortices suggest that this formed one of a pair of open quatrefoil panels flanking central entrance to hall). Two first floor c.1600 chamfered stone fireplaces; old doors throughout. Fine C14 smoke-blackened roof: billet decorated frieze. Trusses have chamfered brackets with moulded capitals, the central hall truss with carved head corbels; moulded main posts and braces to central hall truss with moulded tie beam, queen struts, collar and cusped v-struts; chamfered arch-braced intermediate collar trusses with cusped v-struts. Sets of three chamfered butt purlins with chamfered cusped wind braces; spere truss with queen struts and v-struts. Pairs of purlins with wind braces over lower end.

The house was possibly that built for Edward de Acton, whose descendants occupied it from 1377-1610. It probably extended further at each end, possibly incorporating a cross wing, and formed the centre of a larger group of buildings. The house stands within a large, roughly rectangular moat with a fishpond to the east.

R.C.H.M. report (1974), including photographs, plans and sections.

Listing NGR: SJ4935800249