Whitewell Hall Hill (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Radun Park

In the civil parish of Bowland Forest Low.
In the historic county of Lancashire.
Modern Authority of Lancashire.
1974 county of Lancashire.
Medieval County of Lancashire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SD663468
Latitude 53.91708° Longitude -2.51452°

Whitewell Hall Hill has been described as a Timber Castle although is doubtful that it was such.

There are cropmark/slight earthwork remains.

Comments

This is one a several sites identified by Higham as a possible early (i.e. C11) castle sites designed to establish control of river crossing points in the North East, before power was more centralised at Lancaster etc.. While her thesis is worthy of consideration several of these possible sites, including this one, are weak suggestions. The site needs careful examination by an experienced field archaeologist but it may be entirely natural or altered for reasons other than a motte or at other times (i.e. It may have been turned in into a tree stand - designed to stop deer eating tree saplings). Although now a rather isolated site on the edge of the Forest of Bowland was the site of a Domesday Settlement of which a C15 Chapel of ease is a last relic. The Wikipedia entry (accessed 15 June 2013) reads "It is thought that the ancient administrative centre of the Forest was at Hall Hill, north-north-east of the current hamlet. It is conjectured that this motte - now merely an earthwork mound surmounted by trees overlooking the old keeper's cottage at Seed Hill Farm - formed the centre of an early medieval hunting laund (enclosure) known as Radholme which is mentioned as a vill in Domesday. (Higham)" Certainly it is a possibility that the natural knoll was used as a symbolic marker of the legal status of the forester.

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 887124.
Further information may be available from the holder of the county Historic Environment Record.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Wikipedia entry for Whitewell
Books
- Grimsditch, Brian, Nevell, Michael and Nevell, Richard, 2012, Buckton Castle and the Castles of the North West England (University of Salford Archaeological Monograph 2) p. 108
Periodical Articles
- Higham, Mary, 1991, 'The Mottes of North Lancashire, Lonsdale and South Cumbria' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Vol. 91 p. 79-90 (reprinted in Crosby, A.G. (ed), 2007, Of names and places: selected writings of Mary Higham (Nottingham: English Place-Name Society and the Society for Name Studies) p. 81-91) online copy
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- 1086, Domesday Book Philimore reference 30W37 online copy

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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.
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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