Moat Farm: The Moated Site, Leigh Kent

See also The Boyd Family and Moat Farm

The Moated Site at Moat Farm, Leigh, Kent.

This article draws on J.H. Parfitt’s article of the same title, first published in Archaeologia Cantiana, Vol. XCII, 1977, which drew primarily on archaeological work mainly done by him from 1966 to 1969, along with a digging party led by Frank Hawkins from the early 1960s.

The Site

During the 1960s about one-third of a moated area 500 yards or so from the Green down Powder Mill Lane, was excavated, revealing evidence of two, medieval, timber-framed houses of simultaneous occupation. Finds from both buildings date the occupation to the late-thirteenth and early-fourteenth centuries, after which the site appears to have been abandoned.

Leigh lies on the southern edge of the Wealden Clay belt. It was still densely forested at the time of the occupation of the site, although with substantial clearances along the margins. St Mary’s Church already stood on its hill, about 700m from the site.

The site is at the eastern end of the village. It is a rectangular moated enclosure, with a SW-NE axis of 60m and a width of about 30m. It is surrounded by a 6m wide moat.

Within the village, there are two other known moated sites, neither now as well preserved as Moat Farm – one at Leigh Park Farm, and one at the original old vicarage. The latter was built later, in 1353, when John de Shepey, Bishop of Rochester, ordained a vicarage at Leigh and with “a hall, with two chambers, a kitchen, a stable and one curtilage – all to be such as befits the vicar’s position.”

So the village probably consisted at that time of a collection of several moated, largely self-contained, farm estates, each surrounded by clearances from the surrounding forests for farming, and with the raised church at its centre. There was no Hall Place manor house at that time in the village.

The name of the estate at the Moat Farm site was most likely “Bernette”, meaning “a place cleared by burning”. The name Bernette in this immediate vicinity can be traced back to as early as 1283. The name has survived in one form or another right through to that of the house only 50m or so away, to the south-west of Moat farm, “Great Barnetts”, which dates from the sixteenth century in its present form.

The Excavations

Findings from the excavations suggest that the Moat Farm buildings site was occupied for a relatively short time, perhaps from about 1270 to no later than around 1350.  Two buildings were found within the moated area, though there are probably more to be uncovered, since the two buildings by no means occupied the whole of the site enclosed by the moat (see Figures 1 and 2 from the Parfitt article).

Of the two buildings excavated, Building A was a medium sized hall, 6.6m by a maximum of 5m, and was typical of several timber-framed halls from the late-thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.  Building B was smaller, and was evidently  a house. The mortar used in Ground walls was Paludin limestone, probably sourced locally in the Weald, which was dated to the period 1260 to 1290, so it during those years we can assume the buildings were constructed and began to be occupied.

Two fragments of an Edward 1st silver penny, issued at the turn of the century, 1299-1302, were found on site, showing a decade or two of use. So we may assume that occupation must have extended at least to 1310 or 1320.

A lot of pottery shards were also found, amounting to 178 pottery vessels, including cooking pots, jugs etc. These were mostly local, coarse, unglazed wares, but 6 were Surrey wares, some 30 London type green glazed pottery, and several other glazed wares, suggesting trade of some sort must have brought them here. Many of the pottery shards match finds from the same period at Eynsford.

Most recently, this century, Simon Scott, who now owns the land within the mote, found a shard of pottery, embedded in the inner bank of the moat, decorated with a wavy pattern similar to other pottery shards from a jug found in the 1960s dig, and illustrated in the Parfitt article. Simon speaks of the excitement he felt realising he had unearthed and was holding part of jug today which was probably used at the site some 700 years ago!

Also found were remains of many, mostly light-red Kentish peg roofing tiles, a molten lump of lead, possibly indicating there had been a fire at some stage in Building B, copper strips, iron objects so oxidised that their purposes were unrecognisable, a bronze strap-end buckle, fragments from window glass, and leather from a shoe.

Oyster shells, possibly reared from fresh water in the moat, boars’ tusks and meat bones were also found, some in shallow pits south of Building A, the hall, but were not examined. One unproven theory is that the buildings may have been an offshoot of a Priory located at nearby Tonbridge, a few miles away, with the monks maybe using the Moat Farm site for retreat, rest and recuperation.

There is no knowing exactly when the Moat Farm site was abandoned, but it was thought by Parfitt to be by the mid-fourteenth century, implying that the site was occupied for probably no more than perhaps 50 to 80 years.

Parfitt noted in his archaeological article of 1977 that the name of the “Bernette” estate later transferred 50m south-west to the site of the present “Great Barnetts” when the moated house was abandoned, “probably some time in the first half of the fourteenth century. If so, it is not strictly a case of desertion but of transference, perhaps because of increasing dampness of the site.”

The Historical context

Such speculation by Parfitt about the abandonment may contain some explanation for the relatively short-lived occupation of the site. But to really understand the pressures on residents of Leigh in fourteenth century England, one also needs to have regard to the broader, historical context and events. These may also help to explain the abandonment of the moated site after a relatively short period of occupation. For the late Middle Ages in England were not an easy time to live here at all, in a country wracked by recurrent, horrific famines and plagues.

The Great Famine in England of 1315 to 1317 brought extreme hardship, and was followed by further notable famines in 1321 and 1351.  These made life in the country for the vast majority of workers very hard indeed, and life expectancy was short. Even without the effects of the plague, average life expectancy for both sexes was less than 30 years of age.

Moreover, the pandemic known as “The Black Death”, which had ravaged much of mainland Europe, starting in 1347, reached England in June 1348 and took a huge toll of life across the country for the next year and a half, to end 1349. The mortality rate of the population nationally from this plague has been estimated to have been between 40 and 60%, meaning that it perhaps killed around half of the population.

So, if the moated site at Moat Farm, Leigh was still inhabited by around the mid-fourteenth century, it is quite likely that it was no longer workable nor viable as an agricultural estate once the Black Death had taken its toll on the local peasantry.

With the population maybe halved in mid-fourteenth century England, life continued to be hard for those who survived for years to come, exacerbated by the famines of 1351 and 1369, and another serious plague outbreak from 1360 to 1363.

This was also the era of the Hundred Years War, fought intermittently from 1337 to 1453 over the right to rule the Kingdom of France. English Kings constantly sought to fund their warlike ambitions in Europe by extracting taxes from an already troubled kingdom of England.

The net economic effect of the dramatic reduction in the population was a shortage of labour, and hence upwards pressure on wages, which landlords resisted. This eventually led to so much rural unhappiness that by 1381 Kent was the origin of “The Peasant’s Revolt”, led by Wat Tyler.

So the fourteenth century was not an easy time to live in Kent, marked by recurrent famine, plague and the demands of war. Maybe it is little wonder that the moated site at Moat Farm, Leigh, ceased to be inhabited at some time in the first half of the century.

Phil Wynn Owen  (10 April 2021)