Grafton Court Farm Motte (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Grafton.
In the historic county of Herefordshire.
Modern Authority of Herefordshire.
1974 county of Hereford and Worcester.
Medieval County of Herefordshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SO494369
Latitude 52.02821° Longitude -2.73825°

Grafton Court Farm Motte has been described as a probable Timber Castle, and also as a Masonry Castle although is doubtful that it was such.

There are cropmark/slight earthwork remains.

Description

Cropmark in pasture of large circular feature, over corner of cropmark enclosure (D shaped?) with double ditch on SW side. In addition there are other ditches outside of this, relationship not clear. Is this a motte built into an earlier enclosure? As much of the earliest development of castle took place in the Herefordshire borders, this site is potentially very important. One of very few mottes in the county built into earlier features. The site was visited (Roger Stirling-Brown) after examining an aerial photograph of the site. (J. Pickering). The evidence on the ground shows an eroded mound and the shallow remains of ditch three quarters of the way round. There is also signs of a silted pool on the NW quarter. There is buried stone on the edge of the mound and in the former ditch area. Ploughing has disturbed a lot of stone. Two pieces of stone were noted with diagonal tooling marks. A possible double ditch exists on the SW side of the bailey (Halliwell). (Herefordshire SMR)

Sources of information, references and further reading

County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 10467.

Books
- Shoesmith, Ron, 2009 (Rev edn.), Castles and Moated Sites of Herefordshire (Logaston Press) p. 142-3
  Phillips, Neil, 2005, Earthwork Castles of Gwent and Ergyng AD 1050-1250 (University of Wales) p. 199 Download from ADS
Periodical Articles
- Halliwell, P.R. (ed), 1993, Herefordshire Archaeological News Vol. 59 p. 15
  1992, Herefordshire Archaeological News Vol. 58 p. 42
  1991, Herefordshire Archaeological News Vol. 56 p. 31

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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.
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