Harwich Castle (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Herewiche

In the civil parish of Harwich.
In the historic county of Essex.
Modern Authority of Essex.
1974 county of Essex.
Medieval County of Essex.

OS Map Grid Reference: TM25993287
Latitude 51.94822° Longitude 1.28707°

Harwich Castle has been described as a certain Masonry Castle, and also as a certain Urban Defence.

There are no visible remains.

Description

The murage tolls granted by Richard II (1377-99) were intended both for wall-building and the erection of a castle at the north-east corner of the town. Following a protest by Ipswich the murage grant was revoked, but the castle seems to have been built anyway, for Henry V (1399-1413) granted permission to the town to levy tolls for its repair. The sixteenth and C17 maps depict the castle as a tower on the north-eastern corner of the town wall. (Unlocking Essex's Past–Ref. Weaver)

A Royal licence to crenellate was granted in 1405 March 15 (Click on the date for details of this licence.).

Comments

Given the status of Harwich as base for formation of medieval fleets this tower probably had a function as a storehouse and administrative centre and was more than just a large town wall tower. However, as it was owned by the town and was on the line of the town defences it could be considered as an urban defence.
Gatehouse can not find a permission to levy tolls granted to Harwich by Henry V in either the patent or close rolls. Murage grants are referenced in Harwich Town Defences which should also be consulted for full bibliography.

Sources of information, references and further reading

County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 3377; 18705.

Books
- Kent, Peter, 1988, Fortifications of East Anglia (Lavenham: Ternence Dalton)
  Weaver, L.T., 1975, The Harwich Story
Periodical Articles
- Trollope, C., 1983, 'The defences of Harwich' Fort Vol. 11 p. 5-30
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), 1907, Calendar of Patent Rolls Henry IV (1405-08) Vol. 3 p. 3 (Grant of land to build castle and crenellate it) online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- 1999, Harwich Historic Town Assessment Report (Essex County Council) Download copy

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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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