Essendine Castle (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Essendine.
In the historic county of Rutland.
Modern Authority of Rutland.
1974 county of Leicestershire.
Medieval County of Rutland.

OS Map Grid Reference: TF04911280
Latitude 52.70298° Longitude -0.44814°

Essendine Castle has been described as a certain Timber Castle.

There are earthwork remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

Essendine Castle is a large fortified manor site with a fishpond and an ajoining enclosure containing a church. A further set of fishponds originally lay to the south of this, but were destroyed in the last fifty years. The moat is very large, the outer dimensions being about 100m square. The ditch is 30m wide on the western side, up to 40m on the north, and 3-4m deep. The moat island occupies an area of 55m x 50m. The adjoining fishpond, of roughly triangular shape, measures about 60 x 30m in maximum dimension, and has a break in the bank connecting it to the moat ditch where some stonework is showing. A substantial stream called the West Glen River flows from north to south on the eastern side of the site which is bounded by an earth bank. The outer enclosure to the south side is rectangular, measuring 120 x 50m in overall dimension and has access via a bridge. The church is of Norman origin. Historical records indicate that the medieval complex was probably built by the Busseys or Robert de Vipont at the end of the 12th or early 13th centuries. It is described in an account of 1417. The strong defensive nature of the site, and its similarities to Woodhead Castle 5km to the east, suggest a variation on a ringwork. (Scheduling Report)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1010693, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number 17012
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 348308.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) MLE5238.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Abaroth's World
  CastlesFortsBattle.co.uk
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 Monuments of Leicestershire and Rutland (Leicester: Kairos Press) p. 31
  Salter, Mike, 2002, The Castles of the East Midlands (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 97
  Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge: Boydell Press) p. 138
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 417
  Hartley, R. F., 1983, The Mediaeval Earthworks of Rutland, A survey (Leicester) p. 15, 18
  Brown, A.E., 1975, Archaeological Sites and Finds in Rutland, a Preliminary List (Leicester: Leicester University Press) p. 20
  Page, Wm (ed), 1935, VCH Rutland Vol. 2 p. 250 online copy
  Harvey, Alfred, 1911, Castles and Walled Towns of England (London: Methuen and Co)
  Wall, C.J., 1908, 'Ancient Earthworks' in Page, Wm (ed), VCH Rutland Vol. 1 p. 113-4 online copy
  Mackenzie, J.D., 1897, Castles of England Vol. 1 p. 420-1 online copy
  Blore, T., 1811, The History and Antiquities of the county of Rutland Vol. 1 (Stamford: Newcomb) p. 201
Periodical Articles
- Creighton, O.H., 2000, 'The Medieval Castles of Rutland: Field Archaeology and Landscape History' Rutland Record Vol. 20 p. 415-24
  Creighton, O.H., 1999, 'Early Castles in the Medieval Landscape of Rutland' Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society Vol. 73 p. 19-33 (plan) online copy
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. 78, 170-173, 515 online copy

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