Bolton Percy moot hill

Description

Clark lists, as in Yorkshire, "Bolton-Percy.–Here is a moot hill." There is a 'Mote Hill' in the adjacent parish of Appleton Roebuck which is a scheduled medieval moated site. Given the relatively closeness to Bolton Percy and the site name (which is, as with some other such sites, rather misleading since there is no raised mound) it seems likely this is what Clark intended, although his list seems to have been made up from correspondence he was unable to personally check.

The moat itself has never been described as 'fortified' although it is a fine example of a moated site, this one may have been associated with a Benedictine nunnery. Can be rejected as the site of a motte, is questionable as a defended house.

The moated site is roughly triangular in plan, surrounded by a ditch 12 metres wide and up to 2 metres deep. A stream feeds the moat via a leat from the north and flows down the north western arm. Along the eastern arm there is a slight 5 metre wide outer bank and the otherwise flat moated island has a 0.3 metre high bank along its eastern edge. The southern arm of the moat has been altered to form a roughly rectangular fishpond 30 metres long by 10 metres wide; this has become silted up over the years and is now apparent as a boggy depression. A second pond lies to the west of the first and is visible as a rectangular depression 30 metres long by 10 metres wide and about 0.5 metres deep extending west from the main enclosing moat. (PastScape)