Wacton; The Court (The Gatehouse Record)

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

OS Map Grid Reference: SO614575
Latitude 52.21463° Longitude -2.56519°

Wacton; The Court has been described as a certain Timber Castle, and also as a certain Masonry Castle.

There are cropmark/slight earthwork remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

Motte. An oval mound orientated east to west with the remains of a moat on the west is situated on gently sloping ground falling to the east. The mound rises 3.4m in the east and 2.9m from the bottom of the ditch in the west and has an overall distance of 18m along its longer axis. Remaining buried foundations point to possibility of a round tower with apsidal projection on motte. A line of loose stone connecting motte with remaining arm of moat at side of house shows up after ploughing. It also shows up in crops as band of yellowing 8' wide & undoubtedly covers foundations of a curtain wall. Defences on E of site have been obscured by modern farm buildings (now demolished) & present landscaping which is tidying up site. There is much stone in former motte ditch & in moat. Amongst pile of rubble from demolished stone buildings were noticed pieces of stone with diag tooling & frag of what appeared to be L C13 - E C14 windows, these could be from castle or nearby ruined church. (Derived from Herefordshire SMR)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1005532, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number he167
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 112460.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 940.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Herefordshire Through Time
Books
- Shoesmith, Ron, 2009 (Rev edn.), Castles and Moated Sites of Herefordshire (Logaston Press) p. 273
  Salter, Mike, 2000, Castles of Herefordshire and Worcestershire (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 66
  Stirling-Brown, R., 1989, Herefordshire Castles (privately published) p. 20
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 212
  1981, Herefordshire Countryside Treasures (Hereford and Worcester County Council) p. 27
  RCHME, 1932, An inventory of the historical monuments in Herefordshire Vol. 2: east p. 195 no. 3 online transcription
Periodical Articles
- 1992, Herefordshire Archaeological News Vol. 57 p. 16 (plan)
  1989, Herefordshire Archaeological News Vol. 51 p. 7
  Sterling Brown, R., 1988, 'Preliminary Results of Castle Survey' Herefordshire Archaeological News Vol. 50 p. 41
  1966, Herefordshire Archaeological News Vol. 1 p. 1

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
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.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

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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