Cippenham Moat was a medieval moated manor house, close to the village of Cippenham in Berkshire, England.
In the 13th century, the site held the main house of the manor of Cippenham. The manor was acquired by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, in 1252. Richard was the second son of King John, and one of the wealthiest men in Europe – he went on to become the King of the Romans in 1257. Richard may have developed the manor house, and stayed there occasionally during the next two decades; he also established Burnham Abbey nearby, which was twinned to the manor. Cippenham manor also had a deer park for hunting, called Herleteye park, and was close to Windsor Castle, a royal centre of power. Richard died in 1272, however, and the site appears to have then fallen out of use.
Today, only the earthworks of Cippenham Moat survive, forming a square, moated island 75 m (246 ft) across, with a dry ditch up to 15 m (49 ft) wide and on average 1.5 m (4 ft) deep. A causeway leads into the western side of the island. The interior would have been filled with various buildings, of which only the traces of foundations survive. Moated complexes were a sign of high status in the medieval period but, despite being referred to locally as Richard’s “palace”, the site was probably relatively modest compared to his grander properties.
Bibliography
- Creighton, Oliver. (2015) “Castle, Landscape and Townscape in Thirteenth-Century England: Wallingford, Oxfordshire and the ‘Princely Building Strategies’ of Richard, Earl of Cornwall,” in Peltzer, Jörg (ed) 2015 Rank and Order: The Formation of Aristocratic Elites in Western and Central Europe, 500–1500. Ostfildern, Germany: Thorbecke Jan Verlag, pp.309-341.
- Page, William (ed) (1925) A History of the County of Buckingham: Volume 3. London, UK: Victoria County History.
Attribution
The text of this page is licensed under under CC BY-NC 2.0.
Photographs on this page include those drawn from the Geograph websites, as of 10 November 2018, and attributed and licensed as follows: “Cippenham Moat“, author Nigel Cox, released under CC BY-SA 2.0.