Monument record 0055200000 - CHELMSCOTT HOUSE (SW OF)

TRACES OF MOAT (B1). HOMESTEAD MOAT & FISHPONDS, NOW DRY (B2). DRY WORK AT NGR IS REMAINS OF COMPLICATED SERIES OF FISH-STEWS, ONCE FED BY SPRINGS. DIVIDED INTO SEVERAL NARROW CHANNELS (B3). DESTROYED BY PLOUGHING; JUST VISIBLE AS AMORPHOUS CROPMARK (B4). MORE INFORMATION ON CAS CARD. SEE ALSO CASS 1089.
Stoke Hammond and Linslade bypass Site D 'Moat'. Moat like feature shown on the forst edition Ordnance Survey maps as a trapezoidal area enclosed by a ditch. On an 1827 Tithe Map the area of the moat is shown as irregular triangle of land. It is possible that the stream was diverted from its southern course, possibly utilising an earlier natural channel, and dammed to form a chain of fish ponds. This may have occurred in the early medieval period, but by 1827 one of these had disapeared. The moat-like feature itself appears to have been created from the remains of diverted stream channels or fieldboundaries sometime between 1827 and 1880.(B5).
An extensive medieval moated site with fishponds is visible on historic aerial photographs as earthworks and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Straddling the boundary of two fields SW of Chelmscote Manor Farm that truncates some of the features and centred at SP 89595 27148, the earthworks extend across an area about 336 metres NW-SE and 115 metres SW-NE. The site comprises a possible elongated pentagonal ditch about 6 metres wide and extends about 285 metres NW-SE and 82 metres at its widest SW-NE. The SW facing side is extant earthworks on aerial photographs taken in 1946 and 1947 and bounded by medieval ridge and furrow cultivation blocks, whilst the NE facing side is only fragmentary or plough levelled by that time, so its true original form is speculative. Within this outer boundary ditch is enclosed a notably trapezoidal moat ditch about 7.5 metres wide. Within the moat ditch are three probable rectilinear fishponds, split by the modern linear field boundary into 5. Further rectilinear fishponds are visible to the SE and NW of the moat, each of which is split by the NW-SE aligned modern field boundary. All the features have been plough levelled on aerial photographs taken in 1961 and 1973. Aerial photographs taken in 2005 show that the construction of the A4146 dual carriageway bypass, a roundabout and a large flood alleviation pond has probable destroyed much or all of the features described (6-10).