The Leveson Manor House, contemporarily known as the Moat House, and also known as the Willenhall Moated Site, is a former

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...

in the area of

Willenhall Willenhall is a market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall, Walsall district, in the county of the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England, with a population taken at the 2021 United Kingdom census, 2021 Census of 49,587. It is ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

. It was once a large building surrounded by a moat.1975. Moated Site List. Bham Mus.Tildesley Norman W. (1951). A History of Willenhall. 150.

History

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch dug around a castle, fortification, building, or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. Moats can be dry or filled with water. In some places, moats evolved into more extensive water d ...

existed on the site during the

Medieval period In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

. Alongside a similar property in

Wolverhampton Wolverhampton ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands of England. Located around 12 miles (20 km) north of Birmingham, it forms the northwestern part of the West Midlands conurbation, with the towns of ...

, the Manor House was built during the 16th century by the Wolverhampton branch of the Leveson family, and it was the largest building in Willenhall by the 17th century. Listed as the Moat House, the building first appears in records in 1666 when it is owned by John Leveson and is listed as containing ten

hearths A hearth () is the place in a home where a fire is or was traditionally kept for home heating and for cooking, usually constituted by a horizontal hearthstone and often enclosed to varying degrees by any combination of reredos (a low, partial ...

. The last member of the Leveson family who owned the building died in 1752 and it was sold to Thomas Hincks in 1763.

The Manor House was demolished by 1800, and a fishpond was added to what remained of the moat during this time. The grounds of the Manor House also first appears on maps of the area in 1800,Godson. (1800). Plan of the hamlet or township of Willenhall. and beginning in 1841 the moat lies within an area of Willenhall known as Hall End.Beckett H. (1841). Tithe map of Willenhall. 1:2376. A plan of the moat was published in 1856. The grounds existed until 1872, when a railway line was built in the area. The moat survived until 1884 when the Moat Field Works were built. The Moat Field Works building was extended by Samuel Baker in 1901, and it merged with Century Lock in 1955. It closed during the 1990s and was damaged by fire in 2015 and 2025.

Excavation and development of the site

The site of the Manor House was identified in 2014 when Keepmoat, who owned the site of the Manor House, sold the land to the Walsall Council as part of the Willenhall Conservation Area to allow for planning permission to demolish the Moat Field Works to build houses, which was granted in November 2024. The factory burnt down on 8 March 2025 and the demolition of the site began on 17 May 2025, with archaeological excavations to be undertaken by the Willenhall History Society to search for the ruins of the Manor House shortly after.

Description

Apart from the maps produced in 1800 and 1841, there are no more records of what the building looked like or any indication of any ruins surviving today. It has been suggested that the layout of the building was similar to other manor houses from the 16th century.

References

{{Reflist Manor houses in England Ruined houses Ruins in the West Midlands (county)