Name: Judith Mobbs
Institution: Dept. of History and Art History, University of East Anglia
Contact: j.mobbs@uea.ac.uk
Project details: Study of medieval moated farmsteads in East Anglia and Bedfordshire to explore their potential as a tool to gain deeper understanding of the development of the landscape for a PhD in Landscape History.
Supervisor: Prof. Rob Liddiard and Dr Jon Gregory, UEA
Research overview:
My interested in medieval moated sites was initially sparked by living in a parish in north Suffolk with seventeen moated farmsteads. This curiosity led to an initial study completed for my Masters Degree in 2025 titled “Splendid Isolation: The Landscape of Medieval Moated Farmsteads in northeast Suffolk”. This explored the fifty moated farmstead sites within six north Suffolk parishes and their relationship to each other and the landscape using a combination of landscape analysis using maps, place names and physical evidence alongside research into their early documentary history. My current research project, started in September 2025 and aiming for completion of my thesis in 2032, aims to extend the methodology developed in the previous micro-study and test it across a wider geography in study areas in Bedfordshire and East Anglia.
Medieval Settlement Research Group 