More information : (TF 13998371) Moat (NR) (1)
Air photographs show traces of additional earthworks at Collow Abbey Farm, area TF 13928370. (2)
The earthworks are suggestive of a monastic or manorial site, but no history or tradition of either could be found. The farmhouse is timber framed - probably 16th/17th century, now rendered over and modernised.
Published survey (25") revised. (3)
TF 140837. Collow deserted medieval village listed by Beresford. (4)
Clearance of the S channel of the moat at Collow Abbey Farm revealed portions of ? late medieval (16th/17th century) wooden machinery, perhaps part of the drive mechanism of a mill. (5)
Extant remains include a perimeter moat, a strongly defensive homestead moat adjacent to an area of probable fishponds, fields, crofts and included field roads and ditches; the whole, now under permanent pasture, occupies some 15 acres and is situated in flat country 40m above sea level; there is an adjacent water supply.
Only two complete arms of the homestead moat now survive, they attain a maximum width of 20m with a depth of 2.3m; in 1963 they were water holding but now, due to a prolonged drought, are marshy only. The island is covered by rig and furrow ploughing (suggesting an early movement of the manor house). The perimeter moat has a maximum depth of 1.4m with a general width of 13m, this feature is no longer evident at the eastern extremity, modern farm building having destroyed the line. The south-west facing arm of this moat has also been mutilated by farm ditching and fence erection.
Surveyed by Air/Ground at 1:2500. OS APs 72 246 167-168 refer.
The wooden mill machinery is being restored by the County Folk Museum Lincoln - the dating is, for the moment, problematical only. The source of the 'Abbey' suffix has not been determined; certainly no monastic establishment is listed at Collow; the original ONB was consulted but was unhelpful. (6)
TF 1400 8374. Monastic Grange of Collow, lies at about 35m
above OD at the NE end of a low Boulder Clay/Till spur and extend
S to a small stream, once the N boundary of East Torrington
Parish and township.
Documentary evidence for Collow is sparse. The place-name
evidently means 'charcoal hill'. Its supposed existence as a
settlement in 1086 relies on a suggested identification with
Coldecotes, which was evidently a separate settlement.1 It
does not occur otherwise in lists of vills or early tax returns.
It is first certainly recorded in 1199/1200 or earlier as a
holding of the Cistercian abbey of Louth Park (founded in 1139),
and thereafter from the mid 13th century onwards as a grange of
that abbey.2 Though perhaps not included in the abbey's
original limited endowment, it may have formed part of the flow
of benefactions soon afterwards that are listed in a charter of
Henry II, dating 1154 x 1161. Among the gifts was land 'tam in
bosco quam in plano' in the fields of Bleasby given by five
benefactors principally the family of Joscelin of Bleasby. With
gifts also in the fields of Torrington and Lissington nearby,
this may perhaps have created the land unit that survived to be
traceable as the hamlet or township of Collow in the Legsby Tithe
Award of 1846, extending to 489 acres.3 Probably by the later
15th century and certainly in the early 16th the 'grangia sive
manerium' was leased into secular hands, producing 10 on a 30-
year lease in 1535,4 a sum which the Valor Ecclesiasticus of
the same year confirms as Louth Park's second most valuable
temporality outside its demesne.5 At the Dissolution it was
granted first in 1537 to Thomas Burgh Lord Burgh and then in 1539
to Charles Brandon duke of Suffolk, from whom it passed later in
the century into other hands.6 In 1563 two households are
listed, and administrations of probate are recorded for residents
at Collow in 1575 and 1592.7 The present Abbey Farm is reported
as timber-framed and probably 17th-century in origin.8
The site is bounded on the N, E and W by a ditch, now partly
destroyed or altered, but in places moat-like in form. The S
boundary is uncertain but may have been the present stream.
Within the surrounding ditches are a number of earthworks. A
series of low platforms emerge from under the W end of Abbey Farm
and probably represent former buildings served by a branching
hollow-way to the SW. This hollow-way is bounded by small
blocks of ridge-and-furrow and the fact that a ridge in the N
block turns to avoid one of the platforms may indicate that the
ridge-and-furrow is contemporary with the platform.
To the S low banks and ditches divide the sloping ground
into rectangular enclosures or paddocks. These banks and
ditches meet a wide, shallow ditch or pond at the S and from the
latter (at 'a' on plan) wood, said to be parts of a mill, have
been found.9 This suggests that the feature may have been a
mill pond or leat. The line of an inlet channel leading off the
stream to the E can be traced on APs.
Slight earthworks continue the line of two of the enclosure
divisions beyond this leat to the stream, but these are somewhat
different in character to those to the N and may be connected
with the impounding of water. The first edition OS 25" map
marks a NW-facing scarp following the SE boundary of the farmhouse
gardens. This no longer exists but was probably a relatively
recent ha-ha. (7)(8)
The Monastic grange referred to by the previous authorities has
also been mapped at 1:10,000 scale as part of the RCHME:
Lincolnshire NMP. The fragmentary moat-like ditches that surround
the earthworks are similar to enclosures found at other grange
sites in Lincolnshire. (9)
All the earthworks around Collow Abbey Farm have been ploughed flat
and are now under arable. (10) |