Delving into the past at Moistown
Ace Archaeology Club members undertake their seventh dig
Okehampton people may be familiar with the name Moyes. There is a Moyses Lane not far from the Castle. While there are many people in the area with that surname, ACE Archaeology Club likes to think it may have something to do with our excavation site at Moistown near Broadwoodkelly.
In 1301, there is a record of a Roger Moys owning land in Broadwoodkelly. His name and that of his descendants varies in spelling, Moyse or Moys, and originally the site was just called Moys.
There is rumour of Roger Moyes being given apartments in Okehampton Castle, but that is about 200 years after the Roger we like to think of as ours, however, he could well be a descendant.
Although Roger Moys owned the land, we are not yet sure when the first house was built on the site, but changes of name in the records suggest not only a house but a house of high status. Moistown Manor and Moistown Court are both mentioned.
The land and therefore the house has passed through the hands of various local families, the Kellaways, the Olds, the Couchs, Gostwycks and Prideaux, to name just a few. This of course makes it more difficult to trace the history and it is only once tithe maps and OS maps came up that we could definitively say there was a house.
ACE first got involved with Moistown in 2008 when we were asked by the landowners if we could help Broadwoodkelly History Society learn how to do an earthwork survey by surveying the site. We agreed, but first the site had to be cleared of blackthorn, hawthorn and brambles etc. It was very overgrown and although we knew there was something there, we could see virtually nothing. Eventually we uncovered a quite extensive site, with the remains of one room with standing walls to about two feet, the rest just lumps and bumps in the landscape.
As the site was slowly cleared and surveyed, it became clear that whatever had been there covered quite a large area. A lovely drive led from the road to the house and then on to the pond, possibly for cart washing and watering horses. There is a spring there. Later surveys suggest the pond may be lined with stones.
The driveway is now like a sunken lane with glimpses of stone on either side and some old trees. It would have made an impressive entrance.
The tithe map of 1839 gives a good idea of the size and layout of the house. The pink bit is residential, and the hatched bit is agricultural and the house is built around a courtyard. There were also barns on the other side of the carriage drive.
The next OS map shows some of the buildings shown in the tithe map have disappeared and some previously residential areas are now agricultural buildings.
Having pretty much exhausted the written records and there being no photos apart from a rather poor aerial photo of 1946, showing only two buildings still standing, how do you find out what is there? Well, you excavate!
But before you excavate, if you can, you do a geophysical survey. This allows archaeologists to try to find out what lies below the surface without having to dig it up. We decided we would use two methods - earth resistance and dowsing, to see how they compared in accuracy of results. Dowsing is controversial but has often been used in archaeology, although not so often written up.
In 2012 we enlisted the help of Dr Penny Cunningham of Exeter University and her resistivity machine. We were given an excellent training session on how to use the machine while doing a survey of part of the site. The same year, this time with the help of Devon Dowsers, we did a dowsing survey of the same area. The results for both surveys were suggestive of walls and rubble but both inconclusive. ACE has since discovered that clay in the ground can skew results.
The landowners were very supportive of the idea of an excavation and in 2013 the first spade was put into the soil. ACE has worked on the site for two or three weeks every year since.
When we started to dig, we found much of the site was covered in a layer of demolished cob, subsequently compacted by agricultural machinery driving over it, leaving a layer of clay that neither resistivity nor dowsing could satisfactorily ‘see’ through.
2019 is our seventh year working on Moistown and we have uncovered a large area containing walls, cobbled floors and even what looks like the fire base for a copper/boiler. We have over 3,000 finds, mostly pottery shards. The earliest piece is Saxo-Norman, dating from around the time of the Norman Conquest, others date from medieval and post medieval times up to the 1950s.
Most of the pottery is in small pieces. Although we may be able to piece together the odd plate, the only thing we have managed to find most of the pieces for and put together is a chamber pot!
Ace thanks and acknowledges Dr Sylvia Warham for her History of Moistown and Janet Daynes, the Moistown Archaeology Project director.
For more information go to https://acearchaeologyclub.wordpress.com/
ACE Archaeology Club was formed in 1997 following the production of the Winkleigh Community Book the year before and meets on the first Saturday of the month.
Erica Williamson
Secretary
ACE Archaeology Club