Mount Alstoe, Burley (The Gatehouse Record)

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

OS Map Grid Reference: SK89401199
Latitude 52.69790° Longitude -0.67862°

Mount Alstoe, Burley has been described as a probable Timber Castle.

There are earthwork remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

An Anglo-Saxon moot mound or a motte and bailey castle surviving as an earthwork. The mound is irregular in shape and is surrounded by a heavily silted ditch. Investigations have shown that there is no trace of any castle structure on the mound. Weak earthworks, perhaps forming a burgus, and the presence of Norman pottery suggest that it was used as a motte. Further work is required to ascertain its nature. (PastScape)

A conical mound surrounded by a rectangular earthwork enclosure. It may be a Norman castle. An alternative origin of the mound is a moot mound - one hundred of Rutland was called Alsthorpe Hundred and presumably met here.
In 1936 GC Dunning excavated at the site and produced a group of Stamford ware (which was known locally as Alstoe Ware) pottery and a whetstone. He identified the site as a Saxo-Norman motte and bailey castle, but found no post holes or other structures.
The 'motte' is completely within the 'bailey' in an unlikely relationship for a castle, hence the suggestion that it may be a moot mound. The pottery would be consistent with a late Saxon/early medieval use of the mound for this purpose. (Leicestershire and Rutland HER)

Alsthorpe deserted medieval village stands on relatively high ground to the east of the B668, mid-way between the villages of Burley and Cottesmore. The monument consists of a substantial mound, identified as a moot or meeting place, and the earthwork remains of the medieval village. Alstoe moot is a large irregularly-shaped mound, about 35m in diameter and 5m high. Surrounding the mound is a heavily silted ditch 8m wide and 1.5m deep. On the southern and western sides of the mound are two very pronounced straight ditches 8m wide and 1.5m deep which appear to mark the edges of adjacent enclosures. Adjacent to the mound are the deserted medieval village earthworks which include a series of house platforms and garden plots located on either side of a north-south running holloway. The outlines of rectangular buildings are still discernible on some of the platforms. Excavations of the moot and the straight ditches have shown them to be contemporary and of Saxon date. The site is also mentioned in the Domesday Book, and there is a documentary reference to a large 'green' ditch next to 'Altiechestouwe' in 1207. The village may have Saxon origins but was certainly occupied from the Norman period until its desertion in the 15th or 16th century. (Scheduling Report)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1010671, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number 17009
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 323503.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) MLE5094.

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. 30
  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. 141 (slight)
  Cox, B., 1994, The Place-Names of Rutland (English Place-Name Society 67-69) p. 4
  Higham, R. and Barker, P., 1992, Timber Castles (Batsford) p. 21, 356
  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. 11-12
  Fry, P.S., 1980, Castles of the British Isles (David and Charles) p. 197
  Brown, A.E., 1975, Archaeological Sites and Finds in Rutland, a Preliminary List (Leicester: Leicester University Press) p. 5
  Renn, D.F., 1973 (2 edn.), Norman Castles of Britain (London: John Baker) p. 124
  Wall, C.J., 1908, 'Ancient Earthworks' in Page, Wm (ed), VCH Rutland Vol. 1 p. 112 online copy
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 online copy
  Dunning, G.C., 1936, 'Alstoe Mount, Burley, Rutland' Antiquaries' Journal Vol. 16 p. 394-411
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- Rickard, John, 2002, The Castle Community. The Personnel of English and Welsh Castles, 1272-1422 (Boydell Press) (lists sources for 1272-1422) p. 405
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. 300-2, 513-4 online copy

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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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