Moat at Arley Hall

1 Arley Hall was once a moated manor house.
2 Fragmentary remains of a homestead moat. The track of the W arm can still be vaguely traced.
3 The moat now consists of an area of low-lying and marshy ground, heavily overgrown.
4 Enclosure about 45m by 30m with a ditch 8-15m wide and 2m deep.
5The remains of the feature described as a moat by Resource 2 is now used as a farmyard dump; a low earthern dam seperates the W end of this from an overgrown and marshy area to the N. These features reside in a natural valley along which a number of artificial ponds have been created, particularly to the N, and rather than being remnants of a moat are more porbably former ponds. The local topography around Arley Hall paticularly at the N where the ground is much higher than these ponds, would seem to preclude construction of a continuous water filled moat around the house; there is no earthwork evidence for such a feature having existed.
To the S of the alleged moat and also occupying the same valley bottom is a large sub-rectangular shaped former pond defined by a massive scarp 3 m high at the E and the natural valley side at the W, retained at the S by an earthwork dam 12 m wide and 1 m high. An overflow channel exists at the E end. It appears that this pond, as well as those forming the alleged moat form part of a complex chain of ponds in this valley, the date and function of which are uncertain.