Haltwhistle Castle Hill (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Haltwhistle.
In the historic county of Northumberland.
Modern Authority of Northumberland.
1974 county of Northumberland.
Medieval County of Northumberland.

OS Map Grid Reference: NY71126416
Latitude 54.97123° Longitude -2.45261°

Haltwhistle Castle Hill has been described as a probable Timber Castle.

There are earthwork remains.

Description

Castle Hill is a prominent, probably natural mound located towards the eastern end of Haltwhistle and a little way to the west of the steeply incised Haltwhistle Burn. It has long been considered a motte (Hodgson 1840, 117-18; Hunter Blair 1944, 164; Long 1967, 114). The western side of the mound certainly appears to have been artificially scarped and it is topped with a bank between 0.9m and 1.2m in height which today survives around the north and east sides. This would seem, morphologically, to make it a ringwork rather than a motte. Despite much conjecture, little has been determined about the detailed chronology of these earthworks, and the mound is, today, quite severely impacted by development. An archaeological watching brief carried out in 1992 when foundations were dug for an extension to Brae Bonny House, which lies against the mound, recovered one sherd of green-glazed pottery. The monitoring archaeologist concluded that the site had been levelled at some previous date and also established that an earlier extension of an adjacent house had required excavation deep into the mound, revealing 'several layers of stratigraphy'. Hodgson conjectured that Castle Hill was the site of the medieval court for South Tynedale, as Wark-on-Tyne was for North Tynedale (1840, 119), but this does not appear to be supported by any documentary evidence, which is relatively plentiful for the role of Wark in this function. Indeed, in 1290, an inquiry into the death of a man in Haltwhistle resulting from a quarrel in the town was heard at Wark before the Bailiffs of Tynedale (Polson 1902, 74), presumably meaning that there was no court at Haltwhistle to carry out this function. (Northumberland Extensive Urban Survey)

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 15481.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) N6684.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- CastleUK.net
  North of the Tyne
Books
- Dodds, John F., 1999, Bastions and Belligerents (Newcastle upon Tyne: Keepdate Publishing) p. 368
  Salter, Mike, 1997, The Castles and Tower Houses of Northumberland (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 59
  Jackson, M.J.,1992, Castles of Northumbria (Carlisle) p. 72
  Rowland, T.H., 1987 (reprint1994), Medieval Castles, Towers, Peles and Bastles of Northumberland (Sandhill Press) p. 48
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 334
  Graham, Frank, 1976, The Castles of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Frank Graham) p. 182
  Long, B., 1967, Castles of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) p. 114
  Pevsner, N., 1957, Buildings of England: Northumberland (London, Penguin) p. 163
  Harvey, Alfred, 1911, Castles and Walled Towns of England (London: Methuen and Co)
  Tomlinson, W.W., 1888, A Comprehensive Guide to Northumberland (London) p. 168
  Hodgson, J., 1840, History of Northumberland (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) Part 2 Vol. 3 p. 117-18 online copy
Periodical Articles
- 1992-93, Archaeology in Northumberland Vol. 3 p. 15
  King, D.J.C. and Alcock, L., 1969, 'Ringworks in England and Wales' Château Gaillard Vol. 3 p. 90-127
  Hunter Blair, C.H., 1944, 'The Early Castles of Northumberland' Archaeologia Aeliana (ser4) Vol. 22 p. 116-70 esp 164
  Ball, 1923, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (ser4) Vol. 1 p. 63-5
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Northumberland County Council, 2009, 'Haltwhistle' Northumberland Extensive Urban Survey doi:10.5284/1000177 download copy
  Constable, Christopher, 2003, Aspects of the archaeology of the castle in the north of England C 1066-1216 (Doctoral thesis, Durham University) Available at Durham E-Theses Online

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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.
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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.

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