Monument record 7226/1 - The Abbot of Ramsey's Manor

Medieval manor of the Abbot of Ramsey. Finds from the site indicated a period of use between the 13th & 18th centuries

Medieval manor of the Abbot of Ramsey. Finds from the site indicated a period of use between the 13th & 18th centuries, although the nature & status of the site changed over time. Documentary sources from the 13th & 14th centuries helped to determine the structure, layout & function of the medieval manor site.

Remains of building 1 were cut by building 3 (service block) & were partly sealed by spreads of stone & clay. The site lay mainly to the south of building 3, to the west of building 4 (hall), to the north of building 8 (later, poss post-med) & ran away west into undisturbed ground. No standing walls survived, the outline of the building being represented by foundation trenches filled with what looked like puddled clay, with some sand, & containing a sparse amount of limestone except for limestone packing within building 3.
The building may have been a single roomed structure, but may equally have been the east end of a much larger one. The limestone may have been either part of the original foundations, the clay mixture being robber trench fill, or had been put in as part of the preparation of the ground for building 3. The single measurable room was 11.1m by 6m inside. The wall widths varied between c.0.75 & 0.95m.
West of this room was a spread of limestone fragments, mixed with a sandy loam, which may have belonged to a room on this side: the west section immediately west of the main room revealed deposits which may have been in a room here. The behaviour of the spread suggested a continuation westwards of the south wall, but its line was uncertain. Inside building 5. & in line with the east wall of building 1, was a stretch of the same sort of clay as that in the wall of building 1, but with much more limestone, possibly marking a continuation to the north.
Excavation along the sides of the south wall produced only Roman material; the wall line of the north wall of the main room produced Roman, 1 piece of Stamford ware of 12th century or earlier date & another that could be Bourne D ware. Both of these could be contamination. There were 57 sherds of Roman pottery & 3 pieces of Roman tile, including a piece of tegula. The building could, therefore, have been Roman, but its alignment was remarkably similar to that of the Medieval structures.

1 of the 2 free standing buildings exposed, building 2 had been built of limestone rag. Any free-stone dressings had disappeared, which was the case throughout the site. The rectangular plan had no detectable sub-divisions. Each side wall had three equal bays marked by buttresses or pilasters, and each end wall also had three of these. The interior was 12.05m long by 5m at one end & 6m at the other. Foundations survived, south wall - 0.7m thich & each end wall 0.85m, suggesting thickening for gables. The north wall was variable with a possible adventitious projection into the interior, 0.65m along the wall & 0.25m from it, beginning at 1.8m from the internal north-east corner. The thickness of the wall for the 2 eastern bays was 0.9m, but only 0.8m in the western one. The buttresses had a greater projection on the south than on the north, 0.5m against 0.3m. If the overall width of buttress & wall is measured on each side, both are very close to 1.25m, which suggests that the greater width of foundation on the north was not apparent above ground. The apparent amalgamation of the buttresses at the south-west corner represents foundations & almost certainly was not carried up into the superstructure. The best average dimensions for each pilaster buttress are c.0.6m along the wall & by c.0.25m in projection.
Cleaning inside the building failed to reveal any overall floor level & this had probably been scraped away by the grader. What did survive was an arc of clay & stone displaying signs of burning in the south-west corner. In the north-west corner was a less well-defined area of small flags & cobbles, with a suggestion that the latter had formed an added surface. The bonding material here was a sandy clay & the surface of many stones showed signs of burning. These two features are taken to have been bases for ovens. The layout at a higher level may have had a fire-place in the middle with an oven on each side similar to the layout recovered at Potters' Oven, Castor (Mackreth). This was the only structure on the site which showed signs of having been a kitchen.
One of the two earliest medieval buildings (the other being building 3 - hall & later a service block) the kitchen is assumed to date from the 13th century. Buildings 2 & 3 are aligned east-west, are close together & are relatively similar in size & shape. This suggests they were in some way related. The size & prominence of building 2 is such that it could have originally been built for another purpose.(0)

Free-standing building lying south of, & parallel to building 2 (kitchen), built of limestone rag set in sandy clay. The surviving evidence suggested that basic plan of building is same as building 2. Buttress in the middle of each end wall, but not on side walls. Internal dimensions - 15.1m by 6.1m. Evidence of for a dividing wall set towards the east to form a square room. Wall thickness between 0.85 & 1m. Surviving width - 0.6m. Buttress layout best preserved at east end & each would have been 0.7m wide by 0.3m deep. West end - central buttress survived, but only partially complete ones at the corners, that at the north-west corner possibly having been cut into when building 5 was put up. The side walls west of the partition had been removed for a distance of 3m on the south & c.3.5m on the north. Excavation established that the foundation still survived in the northern gap. These disruptions were probably related to a change of plan either in the later Middle Ages or after. The only intermediate projection was on the north side, approx where a buttress would have been expected. It was too large to have been a pain buttress being at least 1.7m along the face of the wall, and projecting not less than 0.5m. What this feature may have represented depends on the basic interpretation of the building both in its original form & as it is assumed to have been altered (see below). Any intermediate buttresses on the south side may have been removed when building 4 (hall) was put up.
A trace of flooring was seen at the west end, as a rough limestone surface. Any floor at the east end may have been of earth, or above the level of the cleaned site. That there should have been a floor was shown by remnants of plaster on the east wall. Slightly west of the centre of the room was a rectangular mass of stone set in sand with burnt sand forming part of the perimeter, most probably the basis of a hearth.
Apart from the breaks in the north & south walls, there was evidence for another major change. The poorly preserved dividing wall had been taken down & a post set into the backfill of the robber trench at the middle of the span of the building. The post was rectangular & had been set against the side of a pit c.0.45m across, the other sides had been packed with upright pieces of thin limestone. The post is assumed to have been a prop for the upper levels of the building.
The only dating evidence xame from cleaning inside the west end, where the east wall of building 1 was uncovered. The bulk of the pottery was Roman, there being only one piece which could have been described as being medieval: a sherd of what appeared to be a fine sandy ware akin to that found in Peterborough & belonging to the end of the 12th & 13th centuries. The robber trench in the gap in the north wall produced pottery belonging at the earliest to the 16th or 17th centuries.
Thought to be related to building 2 (kitchen) because close together & similar in size & plan. Presumed to be more impt than building 2 because larger. The buttery may been housed in the lower part of this building. Suitable form would be to have had an upper hall with a chamber attached. It is possible that this building was a block with an upper hall, & building 4 had an end hall plan. Before the hall was built (building 4), the essential business of the manorial estate had probably been undertaken in the suggested first floor in this building. The one small find which represents in almost perfect form one of the chief functions of the site is the coin balance found in the west section.


Poorly preserved, the limestone rag structure of this building had been built against building 3 (hall & later service block), with its axis almost at right angles to it. The west wall was partly lost & the south wall overlaid or incorporated into building 8. The east wall was the best preserved & had a buttress set at the centre point of its inner length. No evidence survived for buttresses elsewhere. What was left pointed to a well laid-out building with straight walls more or less uniformly 0.7m thick. The poor state of most of the west wall was almost certainly due to the mechanical stripping of the site.
The interior had two marked features. The first was a neatly-built, multi-phase hearth set near the south end. Its maximum dimensions were 1.85m by 1.5m. It had been remodelled at various times & the final stage seems to have had the fire at the north end of the block where there was a rectangle 0.7m square. The hearth had been made out of very thin pitched limestone set in clay. The second feature was the remains of stone-faced linings to the east, west & south walls. These are best interpreted as benches. They ran round the end where the hearth lay. The actual layout depends on what happened at the south wall. The plan shows 2 faces here & both belong to the north sides of similar looking features; the southern most feature is taken to have been the wall. The other 2 faces could belong to a bench set on a step. The benches & the step seem to have been uniformly 0.5m wide. The side benches ran for hardly more than 6m from the south wall & the whole building measured 13.7m by 7.2m inside, although the walls were a little askew to building 3. The interior appears to have been divided into 2 functional areas: one with the benches & hearth, the other without any identified feature.
The cleaning of the hearth produced 1 piece of late Medieval pottery & several fragments of glazed roofing tiles, both flat & ridge, possibly from the last roof on the building.
It is possible that this building has an end hall plan & building 3 a block with an upper hall. (0)


Although treated here as a single room, the structure, including the room called here building 6, may have been part of an addition to the north-west corner of building 3. It ran into undisturbed ground to the west where it was sealed by 0.5m of rubble & stony topsoil. This building, built of limestone rag bonded in sandy clay, measured 5.8m by c.3.8m internally & overlapped the end of building 2, leaving a gap of about 2m between the walls of each. The walls varied slightly in thickness & were on average 0.7m wide. There were no internal features and, like all the previous buildings, except building 6, there was no structural evidence for doors. The clay spread shown on figure 3 was below what may have been a slab of flooring & may have been associated with building 1, as it lay in the line of its projected east wall.
Buildings 5 & 6 are possibilities for a larder or dairy.

This building (6) may have been part of building 5. Only parts of the east wall & a south wall lay inside the stripped area. The north-west corner appeared where the grader had cut the topsoil down to the top of the stonework. There was not time to explore the junction of buildings 5 & 6. However, the north-east corner of building 5 had a properly built rag quoin & this would suggest different dates for the 2 buildings. But, as the whole of this addition to building 3 seems to have been less sophisticated than the remains of the others suggested, the intention may have been to form a door running straight through the wall. The internal dimensions were c.4.9m by 3.7m. Although the cleared north-west quoin showed that the building should not have continued in that direction, the north wall ran eastwards & may once have butted building 2 (kitchen), the rest having been cut away by the grader. No internal features were found in the very limited exposure. (0)

All that survived of this structure (building 7) were faint traces of walls lying east of building 3 & possibly representing an addition to it. They consisted of 2 pieces of a heavily-robbed structure, not part of a simple boundary wall as the evidence for 2 vertical offsets showed. The area between these fragments & the end of building 3 was, on cleaning, seen to be different from that to the south where a path led to a door into building 4. The path was earlier than what seems to have been a gate set in a stone wall, possibly contemporary with the walling assigned to building 7. The wall north of the gate position was 0.5m wide & ran for 1.9m to an offset to the east. Further north, & lying to the east, was the base of a mass of rag masonry projecting 0.8m beyond the 2nd face of the wall to the south. The projection had been at least 2m long & this does not suit a buttress attached to a plain boundary wall.
The basic interpretation is that the 2 aberrant pieces of wall formed part of the gable end of an addition which may have had timber-framed north & south walls, the line of the latter possibly marked by the 1st offset. The greater projection would be appropriate for the base of a chimney stack.

As a roofed structure, this building (building 8) was later than building 4 (hall) as its robber trench suggested that its north wall incorporated the south wall of the latter. Appers to have been a single east-west range lying along the southern edge of the platform, walled in stone with its ends lying outside the examined area. The internal width was somewhere between 4.5 & 4.8m although at the east end the width was at least 5.5m. The only surviving pieces of wall were at the extreme east end on the south side & the west end of the north. Both were of limestone rag, the former 0.6m wide. The vagaries of the north wall & the changes at the east end suggest that there had been changes beofre the final form was achieved. However, it is not certain what all of these were.
At about 2.85m from the east edge of the examined area was a fragment of the north end of a wall which, at foundation level, seems to have been 0.8 or 0.9m wide. This compares well with the surviving wall at the west end of the building which was 0.9m wide & suggests that the thinner wall to the east was part of an addition to a building which ended within the stripped site in a gable. However, the wall may itself have been a boundary wall later incorporated into an addition to the main run of building 8. Inside the north wall at the west end was a drain defined on each side by stone faces 0.1m apart. The mortar floor at this end of the building was less clayey than the main one to the east & there may have been a dividing wall between the two, not far from the east end of the drain. In the eastern most room were traces of a mortar spread & it had certainly been fitted, in part at least, with a brick floor laid on mortar. Nearly all the bricks were missing, probably grubbed out by the grader, but their impressions on the bedding survived.
Outside & to the east lay a path & a spread of flagstones. The former should have led to a door immediately west of the eastern diciding wall. The path was made of carefully pitched pieces of thin limestone with the remains of larger ones forming a border on the east side. The other area was less well-defined but may have been rectangular & probably marked the position of a door immediately east of the suggested western partition wall.
A reasonably simple sequence for this building would be to assume that, by the end of the Middle Ages, the main areas of the platform had been defined by stone walls & evidence that this had probably been the case is given below. The wall with the gate on the east side should have returned at the very least to the west to form a southern boundary for the explored buildings. Slight ridges in the surface of the platform along the southern margin suggest that this had been so & that it had also returned east. Building 8 probably began as a simple range, with a gabled east end & a dividing wall towards the west, possibly using a pre-existing boundary wall for one side. But the apparent thickness of the south wall in the building suggests that it had been replaced by a more solid one. The north wall ran up to the south west corner of building 4 (hall), whose south wall then served in some form for the rest of its run in this phase. The east wall may have been fitted into an angle formed by buttresses attached to building 4. The irregularities in the line of the robber trench along its inner edge where it passed by building 4, may have been influenced by part of the history of building 4 & there could have been a timber partition at the major change which would have allowed for an eastern room 5m long & at least 0.5m wider than the rest of the range.
As none of the floors or walls were removed, there is no dating for the construction & use of the building. All the pottery came from robber trenches or from soil which sealed features & there is a high proportion of Post-Medieval sherds which should show that this part of the building complex went on in use to at least the earlier part of the 18th century. The additional room on the east end of building 8 may well have been entirely Post-Med, but the building itself was possibly Medieval.

All that was found was the south-east corner of a structure on the same alignment as the rest of the other Medieval buildings. It was sealed beneath building 8 & was only exposed where the grader had cut through the flooring of the latter. The south wall was recorded for 2 to 2.5m & was 0.6m thick. The east wall seems to have been broken away at its north end leaving only a length of 2.2m, c.0.5m wide.

Only the faintest indications of these buildings were found. For instance, the west section showed signs of having robber trenches of an addition to the west end of building 3, all other evidence having been removed by the grader or lying in undisturbed ground. The section itself presented difficulties as the general excavation policy, along with the shortage of labour & time, prevented it from being cut either to a straight line or even a vertical face.

{2} TL 08359385 A Medieval manor was partially destroyed during construction of a flood bank on the River Nene. Much Roman pottery of first to fourth century (mainly fourth century) date was found but no structures were noted. Fifth and sixth century Saxon pottery was also found.

{3/4} The site was surveyed in advance of destruction, but no excavation was possible. Eight buildings were uncovered, all rectangular with traces of substantial limestone footings. Buildings 2 and 3 had solidly constructed walls and buttresses and were probably of 13th century date. Building 4 was built on to building 3, and building 7 consisted of a single room with a fireplace and a large gateway on the south. Building 8 was probably a late 17th century farmhouse. Buildings 5 and 6 were also built on to building 3, probably in the 14th century. Building 1 of which only traces were found, partly underlay building 3. The complex was probably surrounded by a moat. Finds indicated occupation, possibly continuous, from the 2nd to the 18th century. The site was almost certainly that of the manor of Ramsey Abbey which received the grant of lands in Elton in the early 11th century.

<1> Mackreth D.F., 1996, The Abbot of Ramsey's Manor, Elton, Huntingdonshire, p.123-139 (Article). SNN100143.

<2> 1978, Britannia, 445-7 (Journal). SNN55814.

<3> 1978, Medieval Archaeology (22), P. 142, 178 (Journal). SNN62224.

<4> Artis E.T., 1828, The Durobrivae of Antoninus, P. 26 (Article). SNN55884.

<5> Brown A.E. (Editor), 1978, Archaeology in Northamptonshire 1977, P. 186-87 (Journal). SNN2192.

<6> Brown A.E. (Editor), 1979, Archaeology in Northamptonshire 1978, P. 107 (Article). SNN45225.

Record last edited

May 21 2024 12:18PM