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the moat was infilled in 1816 and the site then turned into smithfield wholesale market until rebuilding in 1974..during archaeological brief this remarkably well preserved section of moat revetment wall was uncovered along with the remains of substantial sandstone buildings within the island..
i beleive that if the markets get the go ahead for demolision the moat will be once again escavated in more detail...i am keeping my ears and eyes open on this one...
I have seen this picture before and great to have it posted again. I wonder what it is that can be seen and never thought that the moat would have been lined with brick around. Anyway, if you go on GE and draw a line from the corner of New Street and High Street and down by the side of St Martins steeple...both can be seen in the above picture... then compare with the orientation of the brickwork in the picture and it might be that this is the bridge across the moat that was at about the end of Bradford Street.
A 1968 Phyllis Nicklin view of the site of the moat. Moat Row to the left and Moat Lane to the right, Drovers Arms on the corner to the right. Photo taken from Bradford Street. Viv.
Rupert
I think the bricks were fairly near the surface and were probably the bricks at the base of the old smithfield market the angle of view would be something like below
It's hard to imagine the scale of the moat now that it's all been developed around the area, but it surrounded a circular island 70 metres across, the moat varying in width from 8m to 30m. The moat and the parsonage were also connected by a watercourse. This drawing from 1814 gives a partial impression of the house and moat.
I get a bit of a different result using GE Mike. I started from the other side of the Rotunda and skimmed the Steeple and arrived at a point close to the end of Bradford Street. Which is where the bridge must have been. I took it that the structure was in fact remains of the moat but I suppose this could be wrong. It seemed that the angle of the run of brickwork was about right for the bridge but who knows. Ignore the other siteline...I do this all the time and leave the lines on. You have the bridge on that view Viv and the view would be from Moat Row.
You know what though...those bricks do look familiar and the Nicklin picture street level Smithfield bricks might be right.
Sue much wider than deep by all acocounts. When it was excavated in 2000 they claimed it was only 2.5 metres deep! Seems very shallow considereing how wide it was in parts. But maybe that was enough of an obstacle. Viv.
Apparently there were two moats: the Lord of the Manor's Moat (or Birmingham Moat) and the smaller Parsonage Moat. They're both shown on Westley's 1731 map, the first moat going back to the days of Peter de Birmingham's castle. It's also thought a moat probably existed at the Parsonage Moat position at that time too. Viv
This is what looks like a painting of the Manor House and moat, I've also included a section of Joseph Hill's 1553 map showing both the Manor House moat and the Rectory moat included the extensive water management needed to feed these moats and millponds.
Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656) shows Holme Park in the foreground in the image below. Don't think there are any references in the modern streets/places although did wonder if Park Street refers back to it. (But think Park Street might be more north-east of Holme Park and might have been named after Little/Over Park - another of the Lord of the Manor's hunting grounds).
Holme Park remained open countryside until the 18th century. Viv.
I think, (dangerous at my age) I have asked this before, but I lived on MOAT LANE in Yardley. for many years. Why was this named so? There was a park across the street could this have been a moat at one time. I wonder?