Cusworth Castle Hill, Sprotbrough (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Spotborough; Sprotborough

In the civil parish of Sprotbrough And Cusworth.
In the historic county of Yorkshire.
Modern Authority of Doncaster.
1974 county of South Yorkshire.
Medieval County of Yorkshire West Riding.

OS Map Grid Reference: SE54180334
Latitude 53.52394° Longitude -1.18422°

Cusworth Castle Hill, Sprotbrough has been described as a probable Timber Castle.

There are earthwork remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

Isolated motte stands in the south-west corner of Cusworth Park. Field investigations in 1964 found it to measure 16ft high, and 60ft by 70ft wide. The ditch which was about 20 ft wide had been filled in on the east. The counterscarp bank survived on the north side. Part of the circumference of the ditch surrounding the motte is visible as an earthwork on air photographs. (PastScape)

Cusworth motte castle lies in woodland adjacent the A1(M) at what was once the south-west edge of Cusworth Park. It comprises an oval motte, 20m wide west-east and 23.5m wide north-south. The motte stands c.5m above a dry ditch, c.2m deep and c.6m wide and partially filled in to the east. The castle was built in the eleventh century by either William de Warenne or Roger de Busli, both of whom were granted lands at Cusworth by William the Conqueror. In the later middle ages it was part of the Honour of Conisbrough, held by the de Warennes. In the eighteenth century, or some time earlier, the site was superseded by that of Cusworth Hall, 700m to the north-east. (Scheduling Report)

"Castle Mound' which is hidden by trees on a small plateau alongside the A1 motorway, is in fact the 'temple hill' which was constructed as a feature of Cusworth Park in 1762-3, complete with a fine slope and ha-ha" (South Yorkshire SMT ref. Hey, 1979)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1010767, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number 13253
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 55989.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 00120/01.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- History of Cusworth Park
Books
- Salter, Mike, 2001, The Castles and Tower Houses of Yorkshire (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 35
  Sneyd, Steve, 1995, The Devil's Logbook Castles and Fortified Sites around South Yorkshire (Hilltop Press) p. 10
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 526
  Hey, D., 1979, The Making of South Yorkshire (Ashbourne: Moorland) p. 45 (reject)
  Magilton, J.R., 1977, The Doncaster District: An Archaeological Survey (Doncaster) p. 29-30
  Smith, G., 1964, Cusworth Hall Grounds
  Illingworth, J.L., 1938 (republished 1970), Yorkshire's Ruined Castles (Wakefield)
  Armitage and Montgomerie, 1912, in Page, Wm (ed), VCH Yorkshire Vol. 2 p. 23
Periodical Articles
- Birch, J., 1981, 'The castles and fortified houses of South Yorkshire' The Archaeological Journal Vol. 137 p. 374-6
  Coates, B.E., 1963, 'The work of Richard Woods, landscape gardener, in the West Riding of Yorkshire' Transactions of the Hunter Archaeological Society Vol. 8 p. 297-306
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- English Heritage, 2009, Heritage at Risk Register 2009 Yorkshire and the Humber (London: English Heritage) p. 113 online 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
  Creighton, O.H., 1998, Castles and Landscapes: An Archaeological Survey of Yorkshire and the East Midlands (PhD Thesis University of Leicester) p. 67, 84, 94, 123, 732-3 online 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.

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