Bossall Hall

Heritage listing

Details The monument includes the remains of the quadrangular castle at Bossall Hall, situated to the west of St Botolph's church on the crest of an area of high land to the west of the River Derwent valley. Although the castle was demolished to make way for the present Grade II listed 16th/18th century hall with its gardens, the castle moat which surrounds the house is for the most part retained as an open ditch and the foundations of the curtain wall are visible in places as earth-covered banks at the edge of the moat. The hall stands on the northern part of the inner island, which measures up to 105m north-south by 70m east-west; the inner moat is visible on all four sides of the island as a dry ditch up to 10m wide by 2.5m deep. A 4m wide bank, thought to contain remains of the curtain wall, surrounds the southern half of the island and varies between about 0.5m high on the western arm to 1.5m high on the eastern arm. Another bank, 4m wide by 0.5m high, lies on the outer edge of the eastern arm of the moat. A causeway across the north-eastern corner of the moat and two footbridges are modern but the brick bridge across the eastern arm was built in 1808 on the site of an original entrance and its stone footings are the medieval bridge abutments. Around three sides of the inner moat is an outer court, ranging between 20m and 35m across and surrounded by an outer moat. The northern arm of this moat is visible as a ditch 8m wide by 2m deep with an outer bank on its north side which is not clearly defined but is about 0.5m high and at most 8m wide. There are no upstanding remains of the outer curtain wall but its footings will survive below-ground. Although the eastern end of the ditch has been infilled since the 1920's, the 1911 edition of the Ordnance Survey map record

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.