During the medieval period, houses were built on moated sites partly for defensive purposes but also as a sign of prestige.
The area consists of a moated island that would have been the site of a dwelling in the past.
The moated site on which the ruined building stands is a scheduled monument.
There is evidence of a two-storey house on a moated site in the estate in a 17th-century estate map and an 18th-century engraving.
It was built in 1660, on a site that was originally moated.
At the time, it was the zoo's most impressive and costly ever exhibit designed to be moated and barless.
The castle comprises a walled, moated enclosure, with an entrance way through a 17th-century timber and plaster gatehouse.
This was a timber-framed banqueting house surrounded by a moated earthwork about by about that 15th century kings used instead of the castle's state apartments.
