Appleton Area Archaeological Research Project

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The Appleton Area Archaeological Research Project (AAARP) researches Appleton and the surrounding area including the settlements of Eaton and Besselsleigh, the deserted medieval village of Tubney and the deserted manor of Besselsleigh adjacent to the surviving church of St Lawrence. Research themes include the development and growth of medieval settlements, the moated manor sites at Appleton, Tyntens and Tubney Manor Farm, and settlement abandonment at Tubney Manor Farm and Besselsleigh. 

Our first AAARP fieldwork was the excavation of four test pits close to Appleton Manor, a moated site with a surviving twelfth century hall-house. This was followed by an extensive test-pit campaign in Appleton, Eaton and Tubney Manor Farm to investigate the development of Appleton village. Fieldwork at the deserted medieval settlement at Tubney Manor Farm included test pits and geophysical survey.

In 2018 we began major excavations at the site of the deserted manor and village of Besselsleigh with a series of topographic and geophysical surveys. Subsequently, a series of test pits and two small 1m by 3m trenches, trenches 1 and 2, were excavated. 

These surveys and exploratory excavations were shaped by the project research questions: 

• Was there pre-medieval settlement on the site?
• What was the layout and character of the medieval manor house? 
• Was there a village associated with the medieval manor house? 
• If so, what was its extent and when was it founded and abandoned? 
• What are the relationships between the manor house site and the modern village of Besselsleigh?

Following this initial work, two larger trenches (3 and 4) were excavated at Besselsleigh Manor from 2021 to 2024. These were placed within the original Besselsleigh manorial complex to the north and west of Besselsleigh church. One was positioned over the earlier manor house which was demolished in 1784. The other was placed over the farm buildings and later manor house, which were demolished in 1871. 

During this period these trenches were extended, with additional trenches (5-10) exploring the house’s attendant farm buildings and likely village buildings to the west, as well as activity around a well and anomalies revealed by further geophysical survey.

In addition, nine test-pits were dug in the area between the estate buildings and village to the west of the manor and in land to the east of the manor complex.

The manor was demolished in the 1780s and the final farm buildings in the late-nineteenth century. As a result, under what is now parkland, archaeological evidence survives for continuous occupation on the site from before the Conquest into the nineteenth century.

The radical changes to the layout of the manor in the seventeenth century, during the lordship of William Lenthall, the Speaker of the Long Parliament, included changing the orientation of the manor to face south and creating a new entrance drive.