The Moat at St. Peter’s Hall probably dates from the 11th or 12th Century and would have extended originally right around the house with a gatehouse on the site of the current brewery with a track running due north towards the Bungay-Flixton Road. We had it cleaned out and re-stocked with fish, mainly mirror carp, in 1997.
Moats are quite common in East Anglia and are variously thought to have been dug as a defence against the Vikings who raided the area well into the Eleventh Century, as a source of standing water for cattle, or as a source of clay for the bricks used for the earliest house on the site. In fact, many later moats were dug merely because they had become fashionable, great houses and castles had moats so why not smaller houses?
