This was destroyed by fire in 1543, and some of its smoke-blackened corner stones were used when, in Jacobean times, a brick country house rose upon the ruins of the feudal castle.
The Manor House, with its many gables and its small diamond-paned windows, was still much as the builder had left it in the early seventeenth century.

Of the double moats which had guarded its more warlike predecessor, the outer had been allowed to dry up, and served the humble function of a kitchen garden.

The inner one was still there, and lay forty feet in breadth, though now only a few feet in depth, round the whole house.

A small stream fed it and continued beyond it, so that the sheet of water, though turbid, was never ditchlike or unhealthy.

The ground floor windows were within a foot of the surface of the water.
The only approach to the house was over a drawbridge, the chains and windlass of which had long been rusted and broken.