Excavations were carried out at the moated sites of Barrow Old Hall and
Twiss Green, in Warrington, North West England, in the 1980s.
Sub-manorial estates were established at these two sites by the
fourteenth century, located near the boundaries of their multi-moated
townships. Townships with multiple moats were a feature of parts of
North West England and may have been the result of medieval assarting
and the expansion of agriculture on to fringe or marginal areas, on the
boundaries of earlier manors. It also owed much to the unusual tenurial
arrangements of the region, whereby lords granted small estates out of
their holdings, often to family members, to construct moated homesteads.
This report presents the results of the excavations at these two small
moated sites, including evidence for possible aisled halls at both
sites, as well as a significant assemblage of medieval and early
post-medieval pottery. There is also a full account of the finding of
the remains of a timber bridge at Twiss Green and its full
reconstruction; an illustration of which was previously published in the
Shire Archaeology series book on Moated Sites in 1985. The publication
of these excavations contributes to a more comprehensive understanding
of the role and development of moated sites in this part of North West
England and completes the outstanding analysis of moated sites excavated
in the Warrington area.