Castle Donington (The Gatehouse Record)

Description

Site of a medieval enclosure castle with outer and inner ditches surviving as earthworks, partly infilled. Buried foundations of castle built circa 1150, destroyed in 1215, rebuilt circa 1290 and ruinous by 1565. It was demolished in 1595. The enclosure castle occupies a sub-circular area about 160 metres in diameter defined by a pair of ditches cutting off the tip of the promontory from the plateau to the south. The outer ditch has been mostly backfilled but is still visible as an earthwork feature about 2 metres deep and 15 metres wide. The inner ditch is still a major earthwork despite being infilled at various points along its circuit. To the south and south east it was 10 metres below ground level and at least 25 metres wide. To the north and west the ditch was formed by scarping the natural slopes. The outer ditch is separated from the inner ditch by a broad bank up to 4 metres above present ground level and 20 metres wide towards its south-western end. The main buildings of the castle occupied the irregularly-shaped platform in the centre of the site and it is clear from documentary references and finds made in the 1940's that the platform was surrounded by a substantial curtain wall with at least five towers. A stone lined well was found in 1978. (PastScape)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1011608, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number 17096
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 315372.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) MLE4435.

Books
- Knox, Richard, 2015, 'The medieval fortified sites of Leicestershire and Rutland' in Medieval Leicestershire: Recent research on the Medieval Archaeology of Leicester (Liecestershire Fieldworks 3) p. 123-42
  Cantor, Leonard, 2003, The Scheduled Ancient Monument of Leicestershire and Rutland (Leicester: Kairos Press) p. 31
  Salter, Mike, 2002, The Castles of the East Midlands (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 35
  Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge: Boydell Press) p. 141 (slight)
  Salter, Mike, 1993, Midlands Castles (Birmingham) p. 37
  Hartley, R.F., 1984, The Medieval Earthworks of North-West Leicestershire (Leicester: Leicestershire Museums, Art Galleries and Records Service) p. 12, 16
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 253
  Fry, P.S., 1980, Castles of the British Isles (David and Charles) p. 219
  Renn, D.F., 1973 (2 edn.), Norman Castles of Britain (London: John Baker) p. 168-9
  Kinross, John, 1973, Discovering Castles in England and Wales (Shire Publications) p. 102
  Colvin, H.M., Brown, R.Allen and Taylor, A.J., 1963, The history of the King's Works Vol. 2: the Middle Ages (London) p. 628-9 (slight)
  Harvey, Alfred, 1911, Castles and Walled Towns of England (London: Methuen and Co)
  Wall, C., 1907, 'Ancient Earthworks' in Page, Wm, (ed), VCH Leicestershire Vol. 1 p. 256 (plan) online copy
  Mackenzie, J.D., 1896, Castles of England; their story and structure (New York: Macmillan) Vol. 1 p. 412 online copy
  Nichols, J., 1795, The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicestershire Vol. 3.2 p. 770, plate CVIII (opp. p. 781) online copy
Periodical Articles
- Speight, Sarah, 2008, 'Castles as Past Culture: Living with Castles in the Post-Medieval World' Château Gaillard Vol. 23 p. 385-94 (slight)
  Higgins, Tim, 2002, 'Archaeology in Leicestershire and Rutland 2001' Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society Vol. 76 p. 104-5 (slight) online copy
  Speight, Sarah, 1997-98, 'Survey Report - Castle Donington, Leicestershire SK448276' Castle Studies Group Newsletter No. 11 p. 25-6 online copy
  Creighton, O.H., 1997, 'Early Leicestershire Castles: Archaeology and Landscape History' Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society Vol. 71 p. 31, 34 online copy
  King, Edmund, 1980, 'Mountsorrel and Its Region in King Stephen's Reign' Huntington Library Quarterly Vol. 44, No. 1 p. 1-10 view online copy (subscription required)
  McWhirr, A.D. and Winter, M.J., 1978-79, 'Medieval Castles Additional Information' Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society Vol. 54 p. 74-75 online copy
  Cantor, Leonard, 1977-8, 'The Medieval Castles of Leicestershire' Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society Vol. 53 p. 35 online copy
  1969-70, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society Vol. 45 p. 76 online copy
  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)
  Clarke, D.T.-D., 1952, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society Vol. 28 p. 42 online copy
  Farnham, G. and Thompson, A.Hamilton, 1925-6, Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society Vol. 14 p. 32-70 (history)
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- Coxe, H. (ed), 1841, Rogeri de Wendover, Chronica sive Flores Historiarum (London) Vol. 2 p. 165 online copy
  Luard, H.R. (ed), 1874, Matthæi Parisiensis: Monachi Santi Albani, Chronica Majora (Rolls Series 57) Vol. 2 p. 639 online copy
  Madden, F. (ed), 1866, Matthæi Parisiensis, monachi Sancti Albani: Historia Anglorum (Rolls Series 44) Vol. 2 p. 171 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. 285-6
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Camden, Wm, 1607, Britannia hypertext critical edition by Dana F. Sutton (2004)
  Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p. 282
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1907, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 1 p. 21 online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Creighton, O.H., 1998, Castles and Landscapes: An Archaeological Survey of Yorkshire and the East Midlands (PhD Thesis University of Leicester) p. 382-3 online copy
  Reaney, D., 1976, Excavations at Castle Donington, Leicestershire (Unpub site notebook Leics. SMR)

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.

Data >	PastScape	County HER	Scheduling
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