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Description

Reasons for Designation Medieval rural settlements in England were marked by great regional diversity in form, size and type, and the protection of their archaeological remains needs to take these differences into account. To do this, England has been divided into three broad Provinces on the basis of each area's distinctive mixture of nucleated and dispersed settlements. These can be further divided into sub-Provinces and local regions, possessing characteristics which have gradually evolved during the last 1500 years or more. The Lincoln Edge local region comprises a long, narrow limestone ridge, flat- topped and running north to south. Chains of medieval village settlement sites, some deserted and some still occupied in whole or part, are found often at intervals of about 1.5km. They line the foot of the scarp to the west and the dip-slope to the east. Medieval villages were organised agricultural communities, sited at the centre of a parish or township, that shared resources such as arable land, meadow and woodland. When they survive as earthworks their most distinguishing features include roads and minor tracks, platforms on which stood houses and other buildings such as barns, enclosed crofts and small enclosed paddocks. Medieval villages were supported by a communal system of argriculture based on large, unenclosed arable fields. These large fields were subdivided into strips (known as lands) which were allocated to individual tenants. The cultivation of these strips with heavy ploughs pulled by oxen teams produced long, wide ridges, and the resultant `ridge and furrow' where it survives is the most obvious physical indication of the open field system. Individual strips or lands were laid out in groups known as furlongs, defined by terminal headlands at the plough turning-points, which were in turn grouped into large open fields. In the Central Province of England, villages were the most distinctive aspect of medieval life, and their archaeological remains, together with those of their open field systems, are one of the most important sources of understanding about rural life in the five or more centuries following the Norman Conquest. Ridge and furrow is both an important source of information about medieval agrarian life and a distinctive contribution to the character of the historic landscape. The medieval village of Riseholme and associated ridge and furrow survive well as a series of substantial earthworks. The remains of houses and house plots have been largely unaltered since they were abandoned, and limited archaeological excavation has demonstrated that underlying deposits survive well. Structural, artefactual and environmental remains preserve valuable evidence for domestic and agricultural activity on the site which will give an insight into the social and economic development of the village. A monastic grange was a farm owned and run by a monastic community, independently of the secular manorial system of communal agriculture and servile labour. Some granges were worked by resident lay-brothers (secular workers) of the monastery, but others were staffed by non-resident labourers. Granges are broadly comparable with contemporary secular farms, although the wealth of the parent house was frequently reflected in the size of the grange and the layout and architectural embellishment of the buildings. The first monastic granges appeared in the 12th century but they continued to be constructed and used until the Dissolution. Of the original number of sites only a small percentage are known to survive. In view of the importance of granges to medieval rural and monastic life, all sites exhibiting good archaeological survival are identified as nationally important. Riseholme Grange survives well in the form of upstanding earthworks and associated buried archaeological deposits. Buried structural and artefactual remains will preserve unique evidence for the layout, economy and organisation of the complex and for its relationship to the parent house. Details The monument includes the buried and earthwork remains of Riseholme medieval village and monastic grange, the visible remains of which are located in the park to the south of Riseholme Hall, where they take the form of a series of substantial earthworks extending across a gentle north-facing slope. The settlement was established before the late 11th century and enlarged in the late 12th century. Also, land in Riseholme was granted to the newly founded Barlings Abbey in the late 12th century for the establishment of a sheep farm. Further grants were made in the 13th and 14th centuries. The village was first depopulated in the 14th century, as a result of the Black Death, and continued to decline through the 15th and 16th centuries until 1602 when only one house remained standing. During the same period the monastic grange expanded, passing after the Dissolution to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and subsequently to the St Paul family, who also bought the manor of Riseholme. In 1721 the property passed to the Chaplin family, who constructed Riseholme Hall and laid out the landscape park and ornamental lake, partly overlying the remains of the medieval settlement and grange. In 1839 the hall was bought as a residence for the bishops of Lincoln and a new church was built near the site of the medieval church. At the time of the Domesday Book there were five holdings in Riseholme. The remains of this early settlement, which is thought to have been situated on the north side of the stream in the area of Riseholme Hall and church, are no longer evident and are not included in the scheduling. By 1166 these five holdings had been consolidated into one, tenanted by Hugh Bardolf, who is thought to have been responsible for the planned extension of the settlement onto former arable land on the south side of the stream. The earliest remains in this area are thought to be the broad hollow way which extends north-south from the east end of the lake, and the house platforms immediately to the west of it. The hollow way linked the two parts of the settlement across the stream. Where the hollow way bears south west towards the southern boundary of the site, it is thought to follow a pre-existing field boundary, as indicated by the remains of a furlong of ridge and furrow cultivation adjacent to the south. Extending westwards from the broad north-south hollow way is a series of house platforms and rectangular house plots, laid out in a regular plan on each side of an east-west hollow way representing the main village street. Remains of earlier ridge and furrow cultivation survive within some of the plots. Earth-covered remains of stone walls, representing buildings and plot boundaries, survive to a height of up to 1m. The rear of the house plots on the north side of the street are overlain by spoil taken from the lake, and will survive as buried features; to the rear of those on the south side of the street is a linear bank representing the remains of walled paddocks, also overlying earlier ridge and furrow. The dwellings themselves are situated on the street frontage. Partial excavation in 1954-55 of a two-roomed structure demonstrated that it had been constructed in the first half of the 13th century on the site of earlier, 12th century, occupation, and that it was abandoned by the mid-14th century. The encroachment of some buildings onto the main street, reducing it in width, also indicates a phase of contraction. The less regular layout of house plots at the western end of the street suggests that they are later in date. To the east of the north-south hollow way are the remains of the monastic grange. At the eastern edge of the monument is a series of raised rectangular building platforms, believed to represent the remains of a principal house with outbuildings. This complex is approached from the west by a continuation of the village's main east-west street, and from the south by a trackway following a headland between furlongs of ridge and furrow. A rectangular sunken area on the north side of the complex represents a yard, and to the north and west of this are the remains of three rectangular embanked enclosures. These, and further building platforms adjacent to the main north-south hollow way, are also associated with the grange. A linear bank, running alongside the south eastern boundary of the monument, is a planting bank associated with the layout of the landscape park in the 18th century.

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