More information : SO 685857 A deserted village site and moated farmstead
was surveyed by Rowley in 1966. This revealed a complex of house
platforms and associated enclosures together with a network
of sunken roads, and outlying ridge and furrows in a field.
Immediately to the west there is evidence of a considerable
amount of Saxon masonry. Documentary evidence indicates severe
shrinkage here during the early 15th century.
Not listed by Beresford. (1-3)
The earthworks of the shrunken village of Sidbury cover an area
of about 4 ha in a large pasture field E of the church. House
platforms and enclosures occur on the either side of a hollow
way of varying depth but generally 0.8m deep, which runs due E
near the southern edge of the field.
Immediately N of the church is the site of a pond from which
a dry channel runs to the SE. This may be later than the rest of
the earthworks since it cuts through two enclosure banks.
There are traces of another hollow way up to 0.9m in depth, of the
field, with at least one platform on its southern side.
The moated farmstead referred to by Rowley (1) is unidentified
unless he was referring to the apparently 18th century Hall
Farm (SO 68348567), with its late 17th century outbuilding to
the S. However, there is nothing to suggest that the
irregularly-shaped pond to its NW ever formed part of a moat,
particularly as the ground falls away to the E from the western
side of the orchard to the NE of the farm.
The only possible "Saxon masonry" visible in the herring-bone
masonry of the walls of the church but this is dated by Pevsner
(a) to the early Norman period.
Surveyed at 1:2500 on MSD. (4)
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