Page:VCH Derbyshire 1.djvu/488

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

A HISTORY OF DERBYSHIRE considerable. 1 A plan of the whole will appear in the topographical account of the place. 25. WOOD HALL (li. 9), a little to the north-west of Risley, used to be a park-surrounded seat of the Babingtons. The site can be identified by the remains of a rectangular moat slightly irregular in outline, but with two deep ditches and double rampart on the west, which is the weakest side according to the lie of the land. On the south side are traces of a larger enclosed square, which may have been round the farmstead.* MOATS OF RELIGIOUS HOUSES [CLASS F (B)] 1. Round STYDD HALL (xlviii. i), on the site of the old Preceptory of Stydd or Yeaveley, in Shirley parish, are the irregular remains of the old square moat which formerly enclosed the extensive precincts. 2. At HAZELWOOD (xliv. 4), in Old Duffield parish, in a field to the right of the road leading from Hazelwood to Shottle, are three sides of a once considerable moat, enclosing an area of about 200 feet square. Here there formerly stood a grange belonging to the Abbey of Darley. A few fragments of encaustic tiles and moulded stones of fourteenth- century date were found here in 1877, as well as a Nuremburg token. 3 There are also probable traces of moats round Boyube Grange which pertained to Dale Abbey, and round Wigwell Grange, Wirksworth, which pertained to Darley Abbey. Another earthwork remains to be noticed which it is difficult to classify on account of the treatment it has received. The ' GIANT'S GRAVE ' lies on a steep slope of the hill to the east of Ockbrook, in what was an old enclosure before the award of 1773 ; the field to the south is called ' Castle Field ' and is also an old enclosure. The existing mound, or rather combination of three mounds, measures about i oo feet east and west, by about 80 feet north and south. To the west there is a mound or rampart that looks like a portion of defensive earthwork, but it tails off suddenly both north and south. To the N.N.E. of this is another heap, with vague continuations, suggestive of a once circular embank- 1 ' Remains of the old earthworks thrown up for defence at the south-east angle of the south quadrangle can still be traced. On the north and on part of the east sides of the manor house are excavations that are usually spoken of as a dry moat. But it seems more likely that they were quarries for the stone of which the rougher parts of the house are built than made for any defensive purpose.' Revd. Dr. Cox On the Manor House of South Wingfield.' Derb. Arch. Journ, (1886), viii. 77-8. 8 From information supplied by Mr. Mallalieu. 3 This was the result of a few trenches dug across the bottom of the moat by the writer of this section. 392