The Gatehouse website record for Colmworth Manor and Motte

In the civil parish of Colmworth. In the historic county of Bedfordshire (Modern Authority of Bedfordshire, 1974 county of Bedfordshire).

Moated manor, extant building dated to early C17. Alleged to have a motte (a low mound) nearby. (PastScape)
Manor House has a mostly 18/19th century exterior but features a panel of Tudor terracotta tiles set below the ground floor windows on the north east front. The house has been snowcemed and is not outstanding. It is situated on a square platform elevated above a natural south west slope and commands the adjacent road and river valley. The platform achieves a maximum height of 4.3m above the moat bottom and is 50.0m square. It has a ramped entrance at the east angle which could be original, the modern one being further to the north. An air-raid shelter has been dug into the slope at the south angle. Around the platform are the fragmentary remains of a moat and outer enclosure. The moat survives only as a large irregular pond at the north angle and a dry south west arm, 34.0m long by 10.0m wide and 1.2m deep. This is cut lower than the pond suggesting the surrounding ditch would have been at several levels rather than a continuous feature. No trace of north west and south east arms survive. A platform outside the south angle is probably building debris grassed over. The outer enclosure runs in a crescent from the west angle. It starts as a dry ditch 3.5m wide and 0.5m deep and now terminates in a pond 13.0m wide and 1.2m deep. Further enclosures visible on RAF air photographs in the field south east of The Manor have been filled and ploughed and are at present under standing corn. The site is probably spring fed but no trace of an outfall can be seen. (PastScape–ref. Field investigators comments, 1977)
Adjacent to parish church. Clearly the manorial centre. A small castle here can not be excluded.

The Ordnance Survey Map Grid Reference is TL10785854

Sources of information, references and further reading

This site's English Heritage (PastScape) Defra or Monument number is 362890
This site's County Historic Environment Record (formerly Sites and Monuments Record) number is 471 'grey' literature, such as watching brief reports, held by H.E.R.s is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded in this website.

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*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.