Appleby Magna - The Moat House

The Moat House

The Moat House was originally constructed as the manor house for Appleby Magna, shortly after the Norman Conquest in 1066. It was built on the site of an earlier manor house. Until the 16th century it was the home of the wealthy de Appleby family, who took their name from the village. Sir Edmund de Appleby fought in the Battle of Crecy in 1346. He also financed the enlargement of Appleby Magna Church (Saint Michael's and All Angels) to its current size. Sir Edmund and his wife Joan are buried in the de Appleby Chapel, in alabaster tombs.

Another famous resident of the Moat House was Joyce de Appleby, who became a Protestant martyr after she was burnt at the stake by Bloody Mary (Queen Mary I of England) in Lichfield Market Place, for not converting to Catholicism. Joyce's husband, Sir George, was killed following the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh. Their eldest son, George, sold the Manor in 1549. He later drowned. His nephew, Francis(son of his brother Richard), died childless, ending the male line of the de Appleby family.

The original house was stone built, around a courtyard. Only the stone gatehouse survives from this building. The timber-framed part of the building extant today was constructed during the 16th Century. In front of the house is an ancient stone dovecote. Enlarged when the house was built, the dovecote is believed to have Saxon origins.

The manor house had a succession of occupants after 1560. Edward Griffyn of Dingley in Northamptonshire sold the property to Wolstan Dixie of London through a series of legal processes, covenants, fines and recoveries from November 1598. The Dixies then granted the capital messuage and its attached lands to Market Bosworth Free School, who leased it to a succession of tenants for an initial yearly rent of £50 (£5,032 in today's money).

In March 1619 the 'Mansion house' together with six yardlands and other appurtenances, five pasture closes, two crofts, a messuage or dwelling house, another two and a half yardlands and the water mill at Measham, was leased to Humphrey Francys, a yeoman of Barwell, for three years.

Francys does not appear to have occupied the premises - or stayed long if he did - for in October 1621 there was another lease for three lives which was also terminated fairly abruptly when, in December 1628, yet another lease was drawn up. This time the 'Mannor Place or capital messuage of Appulbie the greate' was granted to Thomas and William Hartill of Stretton-en-le-field as "feoffees of the Grammar School". The lease stipulated that 'from time to time as the court shall appoynt’ they were required to ‘permit upon summons or warninges to the said court’ any of the lessors to enter the house and for them to 'mark and brand’ the edges of the ridges and baulkes in the common fields and other places 'with a great Roman S'. The tenants were not to 'lopp, topp shred…nor putt down' any oak, ash, elm or fruit trees, except for getting an annual allowance of timber for repairing the premises.

In October 1649 another lease drawn up for eighty years reinforced these rights, inserting provision for the lessees, Dixie, Farmer and Saunders.

The tenants were thereby given an opportunity to obtain coal for fuel, stones for repairing the old gatehouse and plaster for the walls. From time to time the old moat house may have been left unoccupied. In the 1663 constables’ returns for the hearth tax assessment, for example, it is recorded as an ‘empty house’ with six hearths in the possession of John Stanton.

The reference to Richard Saunders is curious as in December 1711 he is referred to as a ‘lunatic’, an agreement having been drawn up to cover his rights and interests as a result of this and other leases made to him in his infancy.

The moat house continued to be let to a succession of farming tenants over the course of the 18th century. In June 1715 the ‘Manor House’ with all lands appertaining and 'three water grist mills' with fishing rights were leased to Mathew White of Great Appleby. In 1753 the land and water mills were given to William Cooper. A few years later in April 1753 an agreement was drawn up leasing the lands to Joseph Wilkes of Overseal. By the early 19th century the lands were being let on a yearly tenancy first to the Wilkes, then Thomas Heafield and Thomas Taverner, local yeoman farmers, a further indication perhaps that the house itself may have been left unoccupied.

The house was occupied by the Gothard family for much of the 19th century before being finally sold in the 1960s, by which time many of the outbuildings the kitchens had fallen into a state of disrepair and had to be demolished. Much of the surrounding land was also sold off at this point. In 1935 an American had tried to purchase the house and have it shipped abroad.