Week St Mary Castle Hill (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
St Mary-Week; Kinnick; Castle Ditch

In the civil parish of Week St Mary.
In the historic county of Cornwall.
Modern Authority of Cornwall.
1974 county of Cornwall.
Medieval County of Cornwall.

OS Map Grid Reference: SX23649775
Latitude 50.75253° Longitude -4.50148°

Week St Mary Castle Hill has been described as a certain Timber Castle.

There are cropmark/slight earthwork remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

The earthworks of a small Norman ringwork or castle at Week St Mary. In the field to the west of St Mary's church called Castle Hill, in the NW corner, is the earthwork of a small ringwork or castle. It is some 42m in overall diameter: the rampart rises up to 1.5m above an outer ditch which has an average depth of 0.4m. The interior is 0.8m above the outer ground surface level, and there is a platform 0.3m high and some 8.0m square in the centre. The entrance is on the NE where there is a well defined causeway across the ditch. In 1086, Week St Mary was owned by Richard Fitz Turold. It may have been him or one of his descendents (the Cardinham family) who built the ringwork here. The earthworks were surveyed by CAU in 1981 and described in detail by Preston Jones and Rose 1992. The ringwork and associated earthworks, including possibly baileys, are visible on aerial photographs and were recorded during the Cornwall NMP. (Cornwall & Scilly HER)

A castle once stood in the field, called Castle Hill, next to the churchyard and foundations of extensive buildings may yet be traced on the site (Polsue).

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1004386, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number co583
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 436512.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 2052.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Charles Taylor's ecastles
Books
- Higham, Robert A., 1999, 'Castles, Fortified Houses and Fortified Towns in the Middle Ages' in Kain, R. and Ravenhill, W., Historical Atlas of South-West England (University of Exeter Press) p. 136-43
  Salter, Mike, 1999, The Castles of Devon and Cornwall (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 47
  Spreadbury, I. D., 1984, Castles in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (Redruth)
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 77
  Harvey, Alfred, 1911, Castles and Walled Towns of England (London: Methuen and Co)
  Cornish, J.B., 1906, 'Ancient Earthworks' in Page, Wm (ed), VCH Cornwall Vol. 1 p. 470 online copy
  Polsue, J., 1872, A complete parochial history of the county of Cornwall (William Lake, Truro & John Camden Hotten, London) Vol. 4 p. 308
  Daniel, J., 1854, A Geography of Cornwall p. 137
  Mackenzie, J.D., 1896, Castles of England; their story and structure (New York: Macmillan) Vol. 2 p. 20 online copy
  Lysons, D. and S., 1814, Magna Britannia Vol. 3 Cornwall p. 321 online transcription
Periodical Articles
- Preston-Jones, A. and Rose, P., 1992, 'Week St Mary, town and castle' Cornish Archaeology Hendhyscans Kernow Vol. 31 p. 143-53 online copy
  Preston-Jones, Ann and Rose, Peter, 1986, 'Medieval Cornwall' Cornish Archaeology Hendhyscans Kernow Vol. 25 p. 135-185 online copy
  1982-3, Cornwall Committee for Rescue Archaeology annual report Vol. 8 p. 10
  1982, Medieval Village Research Group annual report Vol. 30 p. 6
  King, D.J.C. and Alcock, L., 1969, 'Ringworks in England and Wales' Château Gaillard Vol. 3 p. 90-127
  Peter, O.B., 1902, 'The ancient earth-fenced town and village sites of Cornwall' Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall Vol. 15 p. 113 online copy

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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.
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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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