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Blue Plaque 4 - The Moats and Tumulus
This plaque on Main Street commemorates the existence of nearby moats and a tumulus, which are shown on ordnance survey maps of the area. They are situated on private land in fields to the south-west of this plaque and are not available for examination by the general public.
View of the moats
In his "History of the Village of Stoke Golding", Mr W. T. Hall states that the embanked moat enclosed a square area, the principal portion on the south being some sixty feet wide and some ten feet deep, considerably filled in nowadays. Shallow ditches then ran away from it towards the north and west with banks some four feet high. In those days a spring still rose on the south west. The moats were then categorised as 'moated enclosures with stronger defensive works'. It was thought by many people that they were in fact fish ponds, and this is quite possible as many religious establishments and manors kept fish in such ponds, being a ready and convenient source of food. In the same field nearby stands a tumulus some seven feet high, and twenty five feet in diameter and it is recorded in 'The Story of Stoke Golding'' by Mrs J. Webster, that in 1931 Mr A. J. Pickering of Hinckley, excavated the mound. Three feet from the centre and just below the surrounding ground were discovered some bronze fragments, comprising three circular discs about one inch across, a thin broken ring and a portion of hollow torc or rim. There was an indication of a hearth' blackened stones and small pieces of wood and charcoal also there. Experts from the British Museum dated the finds as being Anglo-Saxon from the seventh century.
The tumulus |
It is believed that a
castellated mansion or fortified manor house once stood in the area where the
moats remain, as the common way, until the time of Elizabeth I, of
protecting the manor house was the construction of a moat, evidence of which
often remained long after the actual building had disappeared.
