Castle Rising Keepers Wood (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Castle Rising.
In the historic county of Norfolk.
Modern Authority of Norfolk.
1974 county of Norfolk.
Medieval County of Norfolk.

OS Map Grid Reference: TF67432468
Latitude 52.79367° Longitude 0.48165°

Castle Rising Keepers Wood has been described as a Timber Castle although is doubtful that it was such, and also as a Siege Work although is doubtful that it was such.

There are cropmark/slight earthwork remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

Earthwork of a mound identified in Keeper's Wood. It has been interpreted as a possible round barrow, motte or siege castle. (PastScape)

Ringwork, possibly siege castle (King 1983 as 'possible' which generally, in King's terminology, means doubtful)

The motte castle in Keeper's Wood survives well and remains an impressive monument, despite the hollow excavated into the south west side. The mound and buried ditch will retain archaeological information concerning the construction and use of the motte, which is of particular interest in relation to the 12th century castle at Castle Rising, 800m to the west. Evidence for earlier land use will also be preserved in soils buried beneath the mound.
The monument, which has been identified as a motte castle, includes a large earthen mound with a surrounding ditch, situated on the edge of a slope overlooking Babingley River, 400m to the north. The mound, or motte, stands to a height of c.3.5m and covers a sub-circular area with a maximum diameter of c.80m. Its top is a slightly dished platform measuring c.30m across. A ditch encircling the mound, from which material was quarried for its construction, has been mostly infilled but remains visible as a shallow, semicircular hollow c.16m wide to the south west of the mound. It will, however, survive as a buried feature. A large hollow, measuring c.5m wide and 7m deep at the bottom and c.12m wide at the top, has been excavated into the south west face of the mound. (Scheduling Report)

Comments

Llddiard reports that this is now believed to be a natural mound. This is an irregular and damaged mound that has several different and doubtful interpretations over the years. There are a couple of other mounds within 500m. Marked as 'Mound' not as 'Motte' on OS map. There is no recorded attacks on Castle Rising.
Gatehouse suspects that if this mound did have any medieval use it was as a mildly defensible foresters lodge, very doubtful as siege work.

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1008357, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number 21330
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 356457.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 3298.

Books
- Liddiard, R., 2000, Landscapes of Lordship (British Archaeological Reports British Series 309)
  Rogerson, Andrew, 1994, 'Castles' in Wade-Martins, P, (ed), An Historical Atlas of Norfolk (2edn Norwich; Norfolk Museums) p. 68-9
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 310
  Lawson, A. J., Martin, E., Priddy, D. and Taylor, A., 1981, The Barrows of East Anglia (East Anglian Archaeology No 12)
  Pevsner, Nikolaus, 1962, The Buildings of England: Norfolk: North-West and South (Penguin) p. 119 (siege castle)
Periodical Articles
- King, D.J.C. and Alcock, L., 1969, 'Ringworks in England and Wales' Château Gaillard Vol. 3 p. 90-127
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- English Heritage, 1987, Scheduled Ancient Monuments Record: Norfolk.

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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.
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