Melton Mowbray; The Mount (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
The Mound

In the civil parish of Melton Mowbray.
In the historic county of Leicestershire.
Modern Authority of Leicestershire.
1974 county of Leicestershire.
Medieval County of Leicestershire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SK74771884
Latitude 52.76194° Longitude -0.89314°

Melton Mowbray; The Mount has been described as a Timber Castle although is doubtful that it was such, and also as a Masonry Castle but is rejected as such.

There are earthwork remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

Medieval motte surviving as an earthwork probably reused later as a mill mound. Variously supposed in the past to be a tumulus, Civil War grave or modern garden feature. A motte castle approximately 30m in diameter and 3m high, with a flat top 12m in diameter. There is no evidence for a ditch. A documentary reference to a motte at Melton, dated 1364, says that it was granted to the hospital of St Lazarus at Burton Lazars and refers to cutting down trees on the mound. A reference to a mill at Mount Pleasant in 1827 suggests a later use for the mound. Some research from the later 1990s has called into question the validity of the site as a motte. (PastScape)

The mound here, though it was used as a windmill mound, may have originally been a castle motte. Parts of a bank and ditch system have been mapped, with a bank to the west of the mound. It may have been a small castle guarding Melton's southern entrance. Trial trenching on the former Police Station site around The Mount (2001) found no evidence of castle-related structures such as ditches. It would appear to have started life as a windmill rather than a castle? (Leicestershire and Rutland HER)

Comments

Cantor hints at a stone castle here. Creighton questions status of mound as castle and, indeed, most authorities who have seen this mound have not considered it to be a motte. The mound is situated on the other side of the river from the parish church and away from the area of settlement. I would not exclude the possibility that there was a castle at Melton Mowbray given it's status as a market town before Domesday but the Mount seems an unlikely site. A more probably site for the manor house of the Mowbray's (Molbrai), which, considering the status of the family, may well have been fortified, has been identified in King Street. Despite being scheduled as a motte Gatehouse has categorised this as a questionable site because of its lack of bailey and unlikely location.

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1010666, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number 17023
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 321327.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) MLE3958.

Books
- Knox, Richard, 2015, 'The medieval fortified sites of Leicestershire and Rutland' in Medieval Leicestershire: Recent research on the Medieval Archaeology of Leicester (Liecestershire Fieldworks 3) p. 123-42
  Cantor, Leonard, 2003, The Scheduled Ancient Monument of Leicestershire and Rutland (Leicester: Kairos Press) p. 36
  Salter, Mike, 2002, The Castles of the East Midlands (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 41
  Hartley, R.F., 1989, The Medieval Earthworks of Central Leicestershire (Leicester: Leicestershire Museums, Art Galleries and Records Service) p. 11
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 255
  Moon, N., 1981, The Windmills o f Leicestershire and Rutland (Wymondham: Sycamore) p. 126, 198
  Hunt, P.E., 1957, The Story of Melton Mowbray p. 63-4
  Harvey, Alfred, 1911, Castles and Walled Towns of England (London: Methuen and Co)
  Wall, C., 1907, 'Ancient Earthworks' in Page, Wm, (ed), VCH Leicestershire Vol. 1 p. 275 (as tumulus) online copy
  Nichols, J., 1804, The History and Antiquities of the County of Leicestershire Vol. 2 p. 2
Periodical Articles
- Speight, Sarah, 2008, 'Castles as Past Culture: Living with Castles in the Post-Medieval World' Château Gaillard Vol. 23 p. 385-94 (slight)
  Creighton, O.H., 1997, 'Early Leicestershire Castles: Archaeology and Landscape History' Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society Vol. 71 p. 29 online copy
  Liddle, P., 1989, 'Archaeology in Leicestershire and Rutland' Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society Vol. 63 p. 119 online copy
  Cantor, Leonard, 1977-8, 'The Medieval Castles of Leicestershire' Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society Vol. 53 p. 39 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.)
- Bourne, T. and Marcombe, D.(eds), 1987, The Burton Lazars Cartulary: A Medieval Leicestershire Estate (University of Nottingham) p. 29
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Creighton, O.H., 1998, Castles and Landscapes: An Archaeological Survey of Yorkshire and the East Midlands (PhD Thesis University of Leicester) p. 393 online copy
  Allsop, J., 1988, Earthwork survey of the mound at Melton Mowbray (Unpublished document)

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.

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.

Data >	PastScape	County HER	Scheduling
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	LiDAR	Open Domesday
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio