NHER 4191 (Monument record) - Earthworks of a probable medieval moat

Semi circular moat marked around this house on (S1).
P. Wade-Martins (NAU)

May 1978.
Course of moat now marked by bank about 1.5m high in garden.
House is Georgian and now called The Old Rectory, which would be common for a moated site.
E. Rose (NAU)

(S1) actually shows three sides of a rectangular moat, one of which survives.
Although the front block of the house is high quality Georgian, the rear wing encapsulates a house of about 1600 which may have had earlier origins.
See (S2) in file, which notes documentary evidence that a rectory has stood on the site since about 1400, and possibly since the 13th century. Therefore the moat must have belonged to the medieval rectory.
E. Rose (NLA), 21 September 2005.

January 2024. Wendling Beck and Fransham Aerial Investigation and Mapping (AIM) Project.
A section of probable medieval moat (see above) can be seen as an earthwork on relatively recent (2017) visualised lidar data (S3). The mapped section of ditch appears to be part of a modern garden on the recent (2022) aerial photographs (S4). It is possible that the mapped feature may have related to a section of the previously recorded medieval moat (see above), which has now been incorporated into the modern garden. A low curvilinear hollow which follows the approximate alignment of the moat as recorded on S1 (reproduced in S5) is also visible on the visualised lidar data. The hollow (mapped by extent) may relate to the former extent of moat. As the lidar survey was flown relatively recently (2017) it is likely that the features still survive earthworks.
J. Powell (Norfolk Historic Environment Service), 25 January 2024.