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    Yorkshire's Secret Castles: A Concise Guide & Companion
    Yorkshire's Secret Castles: A Concise Guide & Companion
    Yorkshire's Secret Castles: A Concise Guide & Companion
    Ebook236 pages4 hours

    Yorkshire's Secret Castles: A Concise Guide & Companion

    By Paul C. Levitt

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    About this ebook

    The Yorkshire countryside’s ancient earthwork castles, built in the time of the Norman Conquest, come to life in this beautiful guide—includes pictures!
     
    The Norman conquest of the British isle was a landmark event in England’s history, drawing a line between its misty Roman and Saxon origins and the grand empire it would eventually become. Largely built after 1071, the era’s castles were basic earth-and-timber structures situated on high mounds known as mottes. Though these ancient structures have largely been forgotten, neglected, or in some cases even destroyed, many still exist today—and have fascinating stories to tell.
     
    Drawing on the Yorkshire Archeological & Historical Society archives, this comprehensive and knowledgeable guide explores the fascinating history of these enduringstructures. Providing a guide to seventy-five castles in total, the book offers detailed information and anecdotal trivia about each site.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateNov 30, 2017
    ISBN9781526706225
    Yorkshire's Secret Castles: A Concise Guide & Companion
    Author

    Paul C. Levitt

    Born into a military family in the historic market town of Beverley, East Yorkshire, Paul Levitt has always been intrigued by the past. He developed a keen awareness of Yorkshire’s rich heritage as a schoolboy and developed a particular interest in the medieval period. Yorkshire’s unique landscape and especially the North York Moors made a strong impression on him and to this day remains a magical place. He has written professionally on a wide range of subjects for the past 25 years.

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      Book preview

      Yorkshire's Secret Castles - Paul C. Levitt

      ACKLAM

      Acklam is a small village located roughly 6 miles due south of Malton and 14 miles northeast of York on the western slopes of the Yorkshire Wolds. It is surrounded by open farmland interspersed with woodland, with extensive views of the Vale of York from the Wolds escarpment to the east of the village. The area has been occupied since prehistoric times, as evidenced by finds from Bronze Age burials on nearby Acklam Wold. There are also Iron Age earthworks in the area and the land around it has been farmed for at least a thousand years. A Roman road that would have stretched from Brough (Petuaria) on the north bank of the Humber to Malton runs close to the village. And on the western edge of a ridge that rises above Acklam beck are the silted-down remains of a former motte and bailey fortress. Reminiscent of the Fossard fortress at Mount Ferrant in nearby Birdsall, but on a much smaller scale, the fortress at Acklam is thought to have been an outlying stronghold of the Fossard family or an earlier attempt at establishing a stronghold that was quickly abandoned.

      The remains of a former motte and bailey fortress are on a ridge that rises above Acklam Beck.

      Extensive views of the Vale of York unfold as you climb the Wolds escarpment to the east of Acklam.

      As at Mount Ferrant, two ditches were dug across the steep-sided natural ridge and form the most visible features of the earthworks. The smallish motte, which stood at the highest point towards the western end of the east-to-west-running ridge would have originally been topped by a wooden tower and palisade. The northern scarp of the ridge still bears traces of a ditch and outer bank, both of which are still extant in the corner of a field to the immediate northwest of the castle. The gently sloping ground to the west of the motte would have served as a bailey. This was protected by the steeply scarped edge of the ridge. A ditch was dug across the ridge to protect the motte from the relatively level ground to the east, which would have formed a second bailey. The bailey was defended on its eastern side by an artificial scarp and ditch. A third bailey would have existed on the land between the eastern bailey and the modern road leading up Pasture Hill. This bailey would have extended to the modern field boundary. The site is visible from the road.

      ADWICK-LE-STREET

      Adwick-le-Street is a village in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster that lies just off the Great North Road (A1) and 4 miles north of Doncaster itself. To the southeast of the village, surrounded by arable farmland, is a recreational area of parkland known as Castle Hills where the earthworks of Hangthwaite Castle are located. The motte and bailey fortress is attributed to Nigel Fossard and originally belonged to the manor of Langthwaite, which was one of six manors Fossard held in 1086 as a subfeudary of the count of Mortain. It later became known as Hangthwaite, which commemorates a ‘lost’ village of which the faint earthworks can still be seen. Its former name, however, lives on in the name of a local lane, which leads past the site to a fortified manor house of a later date. The site is heavily overgrown, but the motte, ditches and counterscarp banks are still clearly defined. A kidney-shaped inner bailey can be traced to the north, as can a sub-rectangular outer bailey to the east. Between the motte and the inner bailey on the southwestern side the rampart ends in a small mound that hints at the existence of a barbican at some stage.

      ALDBOROUGH

      The village of Aldborough (now in North Yorkshire but historically part of the West Riding) is situated just to the southeast of Boroughbridge and not far from the Great North Road. It marks the site of the former Roman town of Isurium Brigantum, which was built at the strategic intersection of Hadrian’s Wall and Dere Street – the Roman road leading from York to the Antonine Wall. Referred to in the Domesday Book as Burgh (‘burh’ meaning ‘ancient fortification’ in Old English), the prefix ‘ald’ (old) was added to the name by 1145 (Smith, 1961). Aldborough’s importance declined when the River Ure crossing was moved to Boroughbridge during the Norman period. Nonetheless, a castle is recorded as having existed on a site to the south of the village known as Studforth Hill since 1158. Originally held by the Crown, it passed into baronial hands (‘Stuteville’ is one of several old names by which the site was known) but was retaken by the Crown in 1205 (Brown, 1959).

      Listed in 2014 as a possible motte and bailey earthworks, the former castle site is different from what one would expect to see had it truly been a motte and bailey. Lying to the south of another earthwork called the Stadium, which was thought to have been used for games and races in centuries past, the land is believed to have been under the plough for centuries. Indeed, sixteenth-century antiquary John Leland noted, ‘There be now large feeldes, fruteful of corn, in the very places where the howsing of the town was; and in these feeldes yereley be founde in ploughing many coynes of sylver and brasse of the Romaine stampe – Ther also have been found sepulchres, aqaue ductus tessalata paviamenta &.c.’ (Toulmin Smith, 1964). Although the raised platform and bowl-shaped depression of the Stadium hints at an oval-shaped ringwork, excavations in 1935 found the depression to be natural (Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 1959). In 1963 a survey suggested that ‘Studforth Hill is a ploughed-out motte, probably the Vetus Burgus of the Pipe Rolls 1205–6 (and Rot. Chart 44).’ (Renn, 1973). It wasn’t until 2011 that Cambridge archaeologists ended centuries of speculation when a geophysical survey revealed a ‘lost’ Roman amphitheatre crowning the summit of the hill. The oval arena would have afforded a magnificent 360-degree view, making it the equivalent of a national theatre of the

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