Castle Hill moated site, 350m south of St Peter and St Paul's Church

Heritage listing

Details The monument includes a medieval moated site now occupied by Castle Hill Farm. The site is reputed to be that of Talleville Castle built after 1139 by Philip de Colville. The castle was adulterine (not licenced by the king) and was one of those ordered to be destroyed by Stephen in 1154 under the terms of a treaty with Henry of Anjou. There is a 1278 documentary reference to a garden on the site of the manor, but by 1405 the site was recorded as being worthless due to flooding and in 1421 it was assessed as being worth 3 shillings and four pence in herbage. The monument is typical of a nobleman's moated manor house of the 12th to 13th centuries, with a 55m square island raised above the level of the surrounding fields with material dug from a deep encircling moat ditch. On the outside of the moat ditch there is a substantial encircling bank, up to 15m wide, which would have typically derived from material dredged from the ditch after the initial construction. The entire circuit of the moat ditch survives as an earthwork except in the north eastern part of the monument where it survives as an infilled feature. The moated island is now occupied by a farm house and a number of out houses and other farm buildings, one of which has been converted into domestic accommodation. On the south side of the island there is a slight earthwork depression which is intepreted as a fishpond. A number of features are excluded from the scheduling; these are all buildings, concrete and tarmac surfaces, fencing, gate posts, telegraph poles and the cellar under the western half of the farm house, although the ground beneath all these features is included in the scheduling. MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. Legacy The contents of this record hav

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.