GOSBERTON 3 : MONKS' HALL

TF 236325

Monks Hall is situated a kilometre to the north-west of the village of Gosberton (Fig 60) and is surrounded by the vestiges of a moat on the north and south and east sides. The eastern and northern parts are largely filled in, and the south part, now made into a pond, perhaps indicates the original position of the south-west corner (Fig 61). There is no sign of the moat on the west, where there are now farm buildings, but on the north is a ditch parallel to the moat and leading to a small ditched area about 40 by 20 metres which may have been a fish pond. The estimated size of the enclosed area is some 1,100 square metres.

The present house is no earlier than the eighteenth century, but it stands on the site of a manor held by the abbot of Peterborough throughout the Middle Ages (1). The origins of the estate are not recorded, but it is likely that the abbey had land in the hundred of Gosberton in the late Anglo-Saxon period. In Domesday Book, however, all of its interests in the area were entered under the heading of Donington in which most of the manor lay, but the caput may already have been established at Monks' Hall (2). Little is known of the post-Conquest history of the site and estate, beyond the fact that they belonged to the cellarer of the abbey, for no registers have survived to illustrate their management (3). After the Dissolution the site seems to have remained in continuous use until the present day, but it is not clear when the moat fell into desuetude.

1. Pevsner, Lincs, 539; LPFD 20, part ii, 208; LPFD 21, part i, 360-1; Religious Houses iii, 59.

2. Lincs DB, 8/11; Hallam, 199n.

3. Hallam, 183

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