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Moat, Doddershall House

This moat lies on the south-west side of Doddershall House, see SP7120 : Entrance, Doddershall House. The house was originally surrounded by a quadrangular moat, of which only this section, about 125m long, and some other traces, remain. The house can just be seen through the trees, and more so in the reflection in the water.

The building of moats in Britain seems to have begun around the middle of the twelfth century, but reached its peak between 1200 and 1325. Although moats did have some economic and defensive benefits, they seem more to have been status symbols and their proliferation was largely due to fashion, and this might well apply to this moat. There are quite a number of references to moats on OS maps of this area, though this part of Buckinghamshire actually has fewer than say Bedfordshire and south of Aylesbury nearer the Chilterns.