Molescroft's Moated Manors

In the Mediaeval period, there were scores of moated manor houses across the East Riding. (In the Hull Valley alone, there were Storkhill, Pighill, Barf Hill,Skerne, Scorborough, Leconfield, Grovehill, Little Kelk, Hall Garth, Cranswick, Heigholme Hall, Parkhouse, Cranswick, Meaux, Leconfield and Woodall) Partly this was probably a feature of the marshy land, and partly for defensive purposes. Of those around Beverley, only Leconfield, which belonged to the powerful Percy family, could really be described as a castle and most were manor houses.

Molescroft (Anglian ‘Mul’s Croft’) consisted of just two households at the time of the Domesday Book and the overlords were the Archibishop of York and the canons of Beverley Minster. By the late Middle Ages, the village had grown up around the cross roads which became the Malton Road roundabout, and there were four moated manors in the area. None of these survive today but a small distance away there are remains of two moated enclosures at Parkhouse Farm between Molescroft and neighbouring Cherry Burton.

There is some debate about the exact location of the first two Molescroft manors. Woodhall Manor was probably the site which lay roughly opposite the end of Gallows Lane where the cemetery now stands. It belonged to the Woodhall family from the 13^th century, who took their name from the manor. The 14^th Century Pighill Manor initially belonged to the Roos family and then to a Royalist commander named Marmaduke Langdale. It subsequently passed to owners named Tadman, Nornabell, Marchant, Rigby and Wise who are all commemorated in local street names. Pighill Manor or Hall lay to the east of the road at the point where Manor Road now becomes Woodhall Way and the site has been lost under housing. Today this point marks the official boundary between Beverley and Molescroft, and an old hedge still crosses the road here that once marked the limit of the old Inclosure. A third manor was called Estcroft and was the home in 1448 of a John Bedford but had once been part of the Woodhall estate. Estcroft was partially excavated in the 1960s revealing fishponds, a barn and remains of the house which had stood on a series of stone plinths. Estcroft stood roughly where the recreation ground is now on what was formerly Pighill Lane. (Woodhall Way was formed in the 1940s from Pighill Lane and Mill Sykes Lane/Low Field Road). A fourth manor, Scrubs Manor, was on Scrubwood Lane and the site is now bisected by the railway line and buried beneath housing. It was the house of a Roger Scoter.

Estcroft and Woodhall manors were abandoned by the 1600s; Pighill was demolished in 1759 although the moat was still visible when the estate was built. By the post-mediaeval period, England was a safer place and those with wealth no longer felt the need to live in defensive dwellings and began to build country houses instead. All trace of these sites was swept away in the 20^th century expansion of Beverley and no sign of the manors now remains, nor of those who lived in them except in local street names.