Old Abbey Farm Risley: Building Survey and Excavation at a Medieval Moated Site

During the 1990s Lancaster University Archaeological Unit (now part of Oxford Archaeology) carried out a large-scale programme of archaeological investigation on behalf of UK Waste Management Limited, at Old Abbey Farm, Risley, Warrington Borough in the present day county of Cheshire. The farm was the site of a moated platform, thought to be medieval in origin; a Listed seventeenth century brick farmhouse stood on the platform, and a Listed brick barn was sited a short distance to the south-west, beyond the line of the moat. Archaeological investigation of the site began in 1990, following an application to Cheshire County Council to extend the adjacent landfill facility. The fabric of the farmhouse and barn was evaluated, several trial trenches were cut by machine, and the potential of relevant documentary sources was assessed. Subsequently, planning permission for the landfill extension was granted and Listed Building Consent gained for the demolition of the structures, and a programme of archaeological recording was put in place to allow the 'preservation by record' of the site. The mitigation investigation consisted of two main components, carried out in 1994-5: the controlled demolition and recording of the farmhouse and barn, and the excavation of large open areas both on and off the moated platform. However, multi-disciplinary analysis of the results of the building survey and excavation, and a programme of dendrochronological sampling, has allowed an account of the chronology and development of the site to be constructed. Specialist study of re-used timbers dated by dendrochronology has suggested that a late thirteenth or possibly very early fourteenth century open hall formerly stood on the site of Old Abbey Farm. The hall is thought to have been fully aisled, with a steeply-pitched hipped roof, but all the timbers from this phase were found re-used in secondary positions, so that many aspects of the building's form and appearance remain uncertain. In the late medieval period it is probable that the aisles were removed, with new timber¬framing built below the arcade-plates. A clay floor found by excavation either relates to the modified hall, or to an earlier structure. The medieval hall stood on a moated platform; the moat and platform could not be independently dated, but appear to be at least as old as the re-used timbers. It is not clear how the moat was crossed earlier in the medieval period, but waterlogged timbers were recovered demonstrating that a substantial timber bridge was constructed in the mid fifteenth century. Documentary sources indicate that the site lay at the centre of the manorial estate of Pesfurlong, created in the mid thirteenth century. A crosswing was added to the medieval hall in the mid sixteenth century; elements of the timber frame were found within the farmhouse, and represent the earliest in situ remains found within the standing structure. The footings of a sandstone bridge may also date to this period. Subsequently, the house was subject to piecemeal underpinning and rebuilding in brick, beginning in the early to mid seventeenth century, and was extended in the mid eighteenth century. The brick Lancashire-type barn was also built at this time. The project provided a rare opportunity to excavate below a standing structure that had been archaeologically recorded. In order to examine the effectiveness and validity of the twin techniques of building survey and excavation, and the inter-relationship between standing structure and buried evidence, a unique research experiment was designed, whereby the two elements of the project were carried out by separate teams of archaeologists, who did not communicate until the completion of the fieldwork stages. The results of the experiment formed the basis of a television documentary compiled for the BBC's 'Countryfile' programme.