Prestbury Moat

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as; Shaw Green

In the civil parish of Prestbury. In the historic county of Gloucestershire (Modern Authority of Gloucestershire, 1974 county of Gloucestershire).

A moated site containing the remains of the manor house of the Bishops of Hereford, situated immediately east of Cheltenham Racecourse. The site comprises two adjoining rectangular, moated enclosures orientated north west to south east. The southern part of both enclosures and the east side of the eastern area lie under and immediately around houses built between about 1900 and the 1960s. The moat and its internal and external banks are most visible in the north west corner of the western enclosure, where the moat is about 8m wide and both banks stand to about 1.5m high from the bottom of the usually water filled moat. The moat running south from this corner was filled in in 1983. The south western corner has been slightly obscured by later landscaping, but a denuded bank can be seen in the front garden of the house called 'Monks Meadow'. The moat and banks which divided the two enclosures are still visible, the moat surviving to about 2m wide and the banks standing to about 1.5m in height from the bottom of the moat. The eastern enclosure is slightly smaller than that to the west, and the moat and banks survive only on the northern side. At this point the moat is about 2m wide with the gently sloping bank to the north. Within this eastern enclosure, the outline of the manorial fishpond is still visible as a round depression, about 20m in diameter. The eastern side of the pond has been truncated by a private garden. Excavations undertaken within the western enclosure in 1951 revealed the foundations of the medieval manor house in the centre of the area. The excavations indicated that the manor house had a timber upper floor, and comprised an aisled ground-floor hall, a first floor solar and a chapel. A second building, which is thought to have been a kitchen, lay to the north west by the side of the moat, and there are indications of further outbuildings, visible as earthworks, to the north.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

The Ordnance Survey Map Grid Reference is SO96672462

Air Photo from Air Photo and general mapping	1st edition OS Map from Mid to late 19th century maps
Modern Map from Landscape form and features	Modern Map from General location and route planning
Geograph British Isles occasionally has photos of the site and will usually give an idea of the surrounding landscape.

Sources of information, references and further reading

This site's English Heritage (PastScape) Defra or Monument number is 117678
Further information may be available from the holder of the county Historic Environment Record. In particular '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, or elsewhere.

• Books
  • Emery, Anthony, 2000, Greater Medieval Houses Vol2 (Cambridge) p513-14
    Thompson, M.W., 1998, Medieval bishops' houses in England and Wales (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing) p178
    Elrington, C.R. (ed), 1968, VCH Gloucestershire Vol8 p73 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=66385
• Journal Articles
  • O'Neil, H.E., 1956, 'Prestbury Moat: a manor house of the bishops of Hereford in Gloucestershire' Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society Vol75 p5-34 http://www2.glos.ac.uk/bgas/tbgas/v075/bg075005.pdf
• Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
  • Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p192, 228
• Other sources, 'grey' literature, unpublished works, etc. (Theses, in-house reports and other such)
  • Payne, Naomi, 2003, The medieval residences of the bishops of Bath and Wells, and Salisbury (PhD Thesis University of Bristol) Appendix B: List of Medieval Bishop's Palaces in England and Wales [available via http://ethos.bl.uk ]