What is recorded here

Half-buried beneath Manorland’s castle ward, the well still stands as a stone throat swallowing rain. Built in the late fourteenth century beside a washhouse, it drank water from a quarry cut into the old moat. Its narrow base alcove and dipping paving suggest a hidden drain, linking domestic chores to the castle’s broader flow.

The ward of the castle provided space for various buildings or structures, dating largely to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but a precise date cannot be provided in most instances. A stone-lined well (diam. c. 1.5m; excavated D 7.8m), with an alcove (Wth 0.8m; D 0.5m; H 1.8m plus) at its base on the N side, was dug through the backfilled deposits in the quarry that was created on the site of the moat of the ring-work. It was probably built in the late fourteenth century in conjunction with the ‘washhouse’ in the forework (ME036-048082-), and it acted as a sump collecting water from the quarry. At ground level the well was surrounded by two levels of stone paving, one underlying the other. The later paving dips to the N and leads to a drain that probably joined with the drain from the washhouse within the forework. (Hayden 2011, 244-6) Compiled by: Michael Moore Date of upload: 11 July 2019

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