Boreham Hall (EHER 5668)

Site of medieval manorial manor and later house, Boreham Hall

Original HER entry merged with NRHE data import. Homestead moat <1> <2> Incomplete, rectangular <3> Field survey, 1976 According to farmworkers, the suggested moat listed by the RCHM was the waterfilled remains of gravel workings filled in several years ago. The farmhouse is possibly 18th-19th century, modernised and not outstanding. See photograph. <2> <3> <4> <5> Sketch plan of 'moat' on back of MSRG card <6> Field survey, 1987 The suggested site of the moat is now under arable and no trace of it was visible amongst the crop. The present occupiers of the farm knew of nothing that could have been a moat, but only moved here 6 years ago. <7> Medieval manorial site. House dates to at least 16th century with 17th and later extensions. The existing property contains two wings, the east has the remains of a 16th century timber framing including a chambered tie-beam and the west appears to have been added in the 17th century. Both wings have much of their original framed roof with collar beams, side purlins and common rafters.<8> An archaeological evaluation was carried out at Boreham Hall in advance of the construction of two new extensions to the existing house. The evaluation comprised of two machine-excavated trenches aligned roughly north-north-west/south-south-east, each located within a new extension footprint. Trench 1 was located within the smaller extension to the south-east of the existing house and Trench 2 within the larger extension to the north. As the evaluation was undertaken well in advance of construction work the size and location of both of the trenches was severely limited by the presence of concrete access paths, garden walls and a large paved patio area. Trench 1 was 3.5m long by 1.1m wide and 0.80m deep. Machine excavated overburden consisted of 0.25m of topsoil above 0.25m of mixed mid brown sandy silt with a similar amount of greyish brown sandy clay silt, containing rare fragments of post-medieval tile, below. Machining was halted at a depth of 0.75m below the surface due to the presence of a copper pipe running diagonally across the trench. However, natural mottled dark brown and orange sand was exposed in a small sondage hand-excavated to the south of the pipe at an approximate depth of 0.80m. Revealed beneath the topsoil in the south end of the trench was an east/west aligned concrete footing with the suspected course of a ‘live’ sewer pipe beyond. Trench 2 was 3.5m long by 1.5m wide and 1.15m deep. Directly below 0.15m of topsoil at the south end of the trench were the truncated remains of an L-shaped brick wall. The wall comprised of three courses of late 18th or early 19th century bricks (pers. comm. Pat Ryan) bonded by lime mortar. The west end of the wall had been truncated by the cut for a ceramic rain water pipe that ran diagonally across the trench. To the north of the pipe it was possible to hand excavate a sondage to a depth of 1.15m. Beneath the topsoil the revealed sequence consisted of 0.25m of mixed modern deposits comprising brown sandy silt, gravel and pale mortar. Below these was a c. 0.5m thick deposit of pebbly greyish brown clay silt which sealed two potential feature fills consisting of 0.14m of dark silt with patches of pale yellowish clay above a 0.20m-plus thick deposit of charcoal-flecked dark greyish brown silt. A number of finds were recovered from the latter fill including fragments of animal bone, oyster shell and three sherds of medieval pottery dating to the c. 13th century. No natural deposits were observed in Trench 2 and hand probing suggested that the fill continued at least to a depth of 1.3m below the present ground surface. It is likely that the fills in Trench 2 infill a large feature such as a pit or ditch. Finds tentatively suggest a 13th century date which would pre-date the construction of the existing house and fits with the theory that the house is built upon the site of a medieval manorial complex. Although the trench locations were limited by existing hard-landscape features and trench depths restricted by the presence of pipes it has been possible to confirm that potential medieval features survive in the area of the proposed extension on the north side of the existing house. <9>