Monument record 1742/4 - Medieval manor (AD 1250-1450), West Cotton

West Cotton was excavated by the NAU between 1985 and 1989 in advance of road construction and quarry development. By the mid-13th century a substantial new complex of service and agricultural buildings had been constructed, replacing the former manor (HER no. 1742/3).

{1} It seems likely that the earthwork remains belong to the manor of West Cotton or Wilwencotes, which can be identified as existing in the early C12th although not specifically named as such until 1314.

{8} A major reorganisation of the settlement had occurred by the mid C13th. The boundary ditches were backfilled and the original manor buildings levelled to be replaced by two peasant tenements. On a previously open enclosure to the east a major new building complex, including a barn, kitchen/bakehouse and a malt house, all of which may have formed the service range for a new manor, its domestic range possibly represented by the unexcavated tenement adjacent to Cotton Lane. Such a relocation of the manor may have been a direct result of the earlier abandonment of the watermill and the silting of the adjacent river channel, with the focus of settlement subsequently turning eastward.

A large barn; if symmetrical about the barn door it would have been c.24m long by 4m wide. In the later medieval period the door had been partially blocked to form a standard 3 ft doorway and the internal area had been sub-divided into smaller domestic rooms.

Tenement D, the kitchen, initially consisted of a single large room with a baking oven. This was later divided into three. A small room was abutted to the front and a sunken chamber to the rear connected to a well. Two stone-lined pits lay in the western room. The larger pit was partially floored with flat slabs of limestone. One of the slabs had a nine-men's morris board crudely scratched on its upper surface. There were three vertical pieces of stone and the central one carried a high relief of a figure of a stylised, shield-shaped face, and wearing a long robe or surcoat with the hands hed together in front.

The large malthouse in tenement C differed from the other malthouses on the site in having a circular wall-footing at one end interpreted variously as a vat-enclosure wall on the unfired base of a large oven.

<1> Royal Commission on The Historical Monuments of England, 1975, An Inventory of The Historical Monuments in The County of Northampton, p.81-3 Site 20 (checked) (Series). SNN77379.

<2> Northamptonshire SMR Collection of Aerial Photographs, Used with NMR & CUCAP collections (Photographs). SNN104822.

<3> Young S.M.; Clark J.; Barry T., 1988, Medieval Britain and Ireland in 1987, p.267 (unchecked) (Notes). SNN878.

<4> Parry S., 1993, Raunds Area Survey Report, p.95-96 (unchecked) (Draft). SNN1175.

<5> Windell D., 1988, SUPPLEMENTARY FILE, (unchecked) (Interim Note). SNN51885.

<6> 1987, Northamptonshire Archaeology Unit: Report for 1987, (checked) (Report). SNN55128.

<7> Parry S. et al, 2006, Raunds Area Survey: An Archaeological Study of The Landscape of Raunds, Northamptonshire 1985-94, p.176 (part checked) (Book). SNN105780.

<8> Chapman A., 2011, West Cotton, Raunds: A Study of Medieval Settlement Dynamics AD450 - 1450 (Excavation of a Deserted Medieval Hamlet in Northamptonshire, 1985-89), (unchecked) (Book). SNN107508.

Record last edited

Nov 27 2023 11:03AM