There was a medieval manor at the south end of the village, now evidenced by remains of the manorial moat. John Sandale, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Bishop of Winchester, held the manor of Great Coates and was granted Free warren there in 1313; Sandale's grant was 'to his heirs for ever' ("et heredes sui imperpetuum"). Also granted in 1313 was the right to the manor's 'wreckage of the sea and all animals called waifs, found within the said manor' (). In October 1697 antiquary Abraham de la Pryme recorded the moated site in Great Coates as containing a brick built religious house, with ""turrits like the old buildings, and somewhat in the walls of the walls of the gaithouse, which seems to have been niches for images, tho' now bricked up"".