Barnack Castle

Description

Walls and mounds of an early castle at the lower end of Barnack village cut through during construction of the railway station. Blocks of ashlar masonry in garden and it was possible to trace foundation 1892. No traces now. (City of Peterborough HER)

It is worth recording in "N. N. & Q." that at the lower end of Barnack village, where the present railway station stands, the walls and mounds of an early castle were cut through when the line was formed. The field to the south of the road then bearing the name of "Bomb castle close." Since the opening of the line the station-master has dug up worked Ashlar stones from its walls in his garden. Nor is it, now that the site is known, impossible to yet trace marks of its lines under the grass. The small rivulet evidently ran along its boundary. No record of any such castle having existed here exists, so far as at present known. In Domesday "Bondi" is recorded to have held it in the Confessor's time, which name "Bondi" seems the Norman scribes' "cant" way of describing the murdered Saxon Earl Waltheof; for the same "Bondi" is there recorded to have held also Earl's Barton.
The information as to this site was derived from Mr. Thompson, surveyor of Barnack and Derby, himself a native of this place; and connected with the making of this railway line. It was also corroborated by the station-master as to his finds of the worked stones. (Irvine 1892)

Comments

A fanciful report based on a few finds of ashlar (in the quarry town of Barnack) and a castle place-name. There is actually nothing to suggest there was any other manorial site in Barnack than the Manor House which was a fine, moated, high status building but not significantly fortified. The place-name probably relates to part of the demense holding of the manor house.