Ongar Castle (The Gatehouse Record)

Description

Norman motte and bailey castle with sub-rectangular village enclosure. It was probably built by Richard de Lucy in C12, (mention is made of the castle in 1157), but the keep was demolished in C16 and replaced by a brick building which in turn was demolished in C18. The plan consists of a flat-topped mount with encircling moat, an inner bailey, a weaker enclosure to the north and east, and the town-enclosure to the west. Fragments of rubble remain on the motte and flanking an axial gap in the bailey bank, some Roman brick being contained in it. (PastScape – Ref. RCHME, 1291; Renn, 1973)

Motte and Bailey with town enclosure. Consists of a motte, c70m in diameter at the base. Surrounded by a wet ditch c12-15m wide and deep. Kidney-shaped, inner bailey to the west and second bailey to the east (see 4104). Town enclosure to the west of the castle. The castle was mentioned in 1157. According to the RCHM the castle is said to have been built by Richard de Lacy in the 12th century but the keep was pulled down in the 16th century and replaced by a brick building, itself destroyed in the 18th century. The motte and bailey are both moated. Entrance from the town enclosure is in the centre of the west side, through a gap in the rampart, on each side of which is a fragment of flint-rubble containing Roman bricks. The masonry does not appear to have extended along the rampart. At the Conquest Chipping Ongar became the head of the Boulogne estates and was a deliberate plantation attached to the castle. There is no exact date for the establishment of either castle or town though the castle is assumed to be late 11th or early 12th century. The castle and town defences were surveyed in 1981, including profiles of the defences, contours of the entrance and elevation of the south wall of the entrance. Large tree-covered motte surrounded by a wide, water-filled moat; bailey to the west intact. High bank runs from the north-west of the bailey around a car park to Ongar High Street; this is part of the town enclosure - the rest has been totally obliterated by the town of Ongar. (Unlocking Essex's Past)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1168118
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 372745.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 140.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Charles Taylor's ecastles
Books
- Oliver Creighton and Stephen Rippon, 2017, 'Conquest, colonisation and the countryside: archaeology and the mid-11th- to mid-12th-century rural landscape' in Dawn M Hadley and Christopher Dyer, The Archaeology of the 11th Century Continuities and Transformations (Routledge) p. 57-87
  Osbourne, Mike, 2013, Defending Essex (Stroud: The History Press) p. 22, 24
  Neville, David, 2003, Lost Castles of Essex (Ian Henry) p. 18-19
  Salter, Mike, 2001, The Castles of East Anglia (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 37
  Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge: Boydell Press) p. 74
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 146
  Eddy, M.R. with Petchey, M.R. (eds), 1983, Historic Towns in Essex: An Archaeological Survey (Essex County Council) p. 39-40
  Fry, P.S., 1980, Castles of the British Isles (David and Charles) p. 272
  Renn, D.F., 1973 (2 edn.), Norman Castles of Britain (London: John Baker) p. 270
  Powell, W.R., 1956, VCH Essex Vol. 4 p. 159-162 online transcription
  Stenton, D.M. (ed.), 1928, The Great Roll of the Pipe for the sixth year of the reign of King Richard the First, Michaelmas 1194 (Pipe Roll 40) (Pipe Roll Society Publications 43) p. xxii
  RCHME, 1921, An inventory of the historical monuments in Essex Vol. 2 (central and south-west) p. 53-4 no. 3 online transcription
  Harvey, Alfred, 1911, Castles and Walled Towns of England (London: Methuen and Co)
  Allcroft, A.H., 1908, Earthwork of England (London) p. 407, 410 online copy
  Gould, Chalkley, 1903, 'Ancient Earthworks' in Doubleday, Arthur and Page, Wm (eds), VCH Essex Vol. 1 p. 296-7 online copy
  Mackenzie, J.D., 1897, Castles of England Vol. 1 p. 265-6 online copy
Periodical Articles
- Creighton, O.H., 2004, ''The Rich Man in his Castle, The Poor Man at His Gate': Castle Baileys and Settlement Patterns in Norman England' Château Gaillard Vol. 21 p. 25-36
  Youngs, S.M. and Clark, J., 1982, 'Medieval Britain in 1981' Medieval Archaeology Vol. 26 p. 181-2 download copy
  King, D.J.Cathcart, 1972, 'The Field Archaeology of mottes; Eine kurze übersicht' Château Gaillard Vol. 5 p. 101-112
  Brown, R. Allen, 1959, 'A List of Castles, 1154–1216' The English Historical Review Vol. 74 p. 249-280 (Reprinted in Brown, R. Allen, 1989, Castles, conquest and charters: collected papers (Woodbridge: Boydell Press) p. 90-121) view online copy (subscription required)
  Gilbert, 1904, Essex Review Vol. 13 p. 157-61 (slight)
  Gould, I.C., 1901, 'Early Defensive Earthworks' Journal of the British Archaeological Association Vol. 7 p. 15-38 esp. 33-5 (plan and section) online copy
  Round, J.H., 1900, 'The honour of Ongar' Essex Archaeological Society (new ser) Vol. 7 p. 142-52 online copy
  Gould, I.C., 1900, 'The castle of Ongar' Essex Archaeological Society (new ser) Vol. 7 p. 136-41 online copy
  Clark, G.T., 1889, 'Contribution towards a complete list of moated mounds or burhs' The Archaeological Journal Vol. 46 p. 197-217 esp. 203 online copy
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- 1846, Chronicon Monasterii de Bello p. 84 online copy (A more recent edition and translation is Searle, Eleanor, 1980, The Chronicle of Battle Abbey (Oxford: Clarendon Press))
  Stubbs, Wm. (ed), 1867, Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti Abbatis; Chronicle of the Reigns of Henry II and Richard I. A.D. 1169-1192 (London: Rolls Series 49) Vol. 1 p. 124 online copy
  Stubbs, W. (ed), 1880, The Minor Works comprising the Gesta regum with its continuation, the Actus pontificum, and the Mappa mundi, by Gervase, the Monk of Canterbury (London: Longman Rolls series 73) Vol. 2 p. 425 online copy
  Rickard, John, 2002, The Castle Community. The Personnel of English and Welsh Castles, 1272-1422 (Boydell Press) (lists sources for 1272-1422) p. 194-5
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Camden, Wm, 1607, Britannia hypertext critical edition by Dana F. Sutton (2004)

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

Data >	PastScape	County HER		Listing	I. O. E.
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	LiDAR	Open Domesday
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio