Excavation February-March 1962 by members of North Thoresby Young Farmers Club in the field north of the church known as Bound Croft or Bond Croft. The southern half of the field has earthworks. The smallest feature 30 feet square and 3 feet deep was a rubbish pit containing green and heavy brown glazed pottery, mostly jugs pancheons and cooking pots with a few large sherds. These were dated to the late fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. There was also nineteenth century sherds of pottery, the neck of a Bellarmine jug, glass, brick, tile, clay pipe and animal bone (ox, horse, sheep, pig). Metal finds included a knife and scissors. Most finds were about 9 inches below the ground surface. The pit also contained a bluestone set on a crude, Victorian plinth a few inches above the rubbish level. This stone was called the Moot Stone locally, although it may have been moved here during the nineteenth century. A possible floor of a mud and stud cottage, 35 feet by 20 feet, lay immediately to the south of the pit. Information from David Robinson. {2} The name 'hortye' or 'hotie' appears in a thirteenth century document. According to Cameron it has been suggested that it means 'meeting-place at a muddy site' from the Old English 'horu' meaning 'filthy/squalid' and tig meaning 'a meeting-place, a court'. This is a difficult word which occurs very rarely both in place-names and in Old English sources. Its precise meaning is uncertain although it appears to be related to MHG 'a public meeting place in a village'. Given the lack of other forms the identification of this name as that of an assembly-place seems dubious. The location of the site is unknown. {3}