Aldworth, De La Beche (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Aldworth.
In the historic county of Berkshire.
Modern Authority of West Berkshire.
1974 county of Berkshire.
Medieval County of Berkshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SU55387840
Latitude 51.50143° Longitude -1.20280°

Aldworth, De La Beche has been described as a probable Fortified Manor House.

There are no visible remains.

Description

Beche Farm stands on the site of the castle of the De La Beche family, possibly erected in the reign of Edward III, when a licence to crenellate the manor house was granted in 1338. Excavations have revealed medieval foundations, and the line of the moat is marked by one or two small ponds. There are no remains of what was evidently a fortified manor house rather than a castle, and no indications of a moat. (PastScape)

A Royal licence to crenellate was granted in 1338 March 3 (Click on the date for details of this licence.).

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 237245.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) MWB4130.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Britannia America's Gateway to the British Isles since 1996
  David Nash Ford's Historic Buildings of Berkshire
Books
- Salter, Mike, 2002, The Castles of The Thames Valley and The Chilterns (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 18
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 12
  Braun, H., 1936, The English Castle p. 103
  Page, Wm and Ditchfield, P.H. (eds), 1924, VCH Berkshire Vol. 4 p. 3-5 online transcription
  Harvey, Alfred, 1911, Castles and Walled Towns of England (London: Methuen and Co)
  Mackenzie, J.D., 1896, Castles of England; their story and structure (New York: Macmillan) Vol. 1 p. 169 online copy
  Turner, T.H. and Parker, J.H., 1859, Some account of Domestic Architecture in England (Oxford) Vol. 3 Part 2 p. 412 online copy
  Lysons, D. and S., 1806, Magna Britannia Vol. 1 p. 232-3
Periodical Articles
- 1933, Journal of the British Archaeological Association Vol. 19 p. 213
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed), 1898, Calendar of Patent Rolls Edward III (1338-40) Vol. 4 p. 24 online copy
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Camden, Wm, 1607, Britannia hypertext critical edition by Dana F. Sutton (2004)

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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.
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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.
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.

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