Cadbury Heath (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
castri de Cadebir

In the civil parish of Oldland.
In the historic county of Gloucestershire.
Modern Authority of South Gloucestershire.
1974 county of Avon.
Medieval County of Gloucestershire.

OS Map Grid Reference: ST6672
Latitude 51.44596° Longitude -2.49060°

Cadbury Heath has been described as a Palace although is doubtful that it was such.

There are uncertain remains.

Description

In July 1209, 40 marks were paid out of King Johns household to Peter Descudamore and Godfrey of St Martin "towards the works of the Castle of Cadbury". No other reference to the Castle is known, but as Peter and Godfrey appear to have been connected with the south west counties it was presumably either Cadbury in Devonshire or one of the two (four) places of the name in Somerset (HKW). An alternative suggestion that the castle was located at Cadbury Heath, Oldland is noted in Neale (1971). (South Gloucestershire HER)

Comments

The site is general consider to be South Cadbury, Somerset.
D.J.C. King, who dismissed this as 'a very unlikely site for a castle' locates this in grid square ST6672 an area now a suburb of Bristol. King had a military view of castles and it may be that John was building a hunting lodge and this is not an unlikely location for such a building, as it would offer recreation near to Bristol whilst on visit there or while awaiting the right weather conditions before embarking to Ireland. (John visited Ireland in 1210, although embarking from Haverford. He did spend long periods in Bristol though). Cadbury Heath was part of the royal forest of Kingswood.
Barrs Court, at ST65937203, is a large moated site, associated with a deer park, fishponds and 'The forest of Kyngeswodd' (Ellacombe 1881). Was this a rebuilding of an existing site? One previously held by the king?

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 201359; 201346.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 4527.

Books
- King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 559
  Colvin, H.M., Brown, R.Allen and Taylor, A.J., 1963, The history of the King's Works Vol. 2: the Middle Ages (London: HMSO) p. 583
  Ellacombe, H.T., 1881, History of the Parish of Bitton p. 94 online copy
Periodical Articles
- Neale, F., 1971, 'Site of Cadbury Castle' Bristol Archaeological Research Group Bulletin
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- Hardy, T.D. (ed), 1844, Rotuli de Liberate ac de Misis et Praestitis, regnante Johanne (Record Commission) p. 120-1 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
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