Knightlow (The Gatehouse Record)

In the historic county of Warwickshire.
Modern Authority of Warwickshire.
1974 county of Warwickshire.
Medieval County of Warwickshire.

Knightlow has been described as a Timber Castle although is doubtful that it was such.

There are uncertain remains.

Description

The possible motte at Kenilworth, 'Knightlow on the bank of the Avon' (W., The Builder, xlvii (1884) 79-80) cannot be located; it may well be Stoneleigh. If, however, the author 'W' is Whitley, this can hardly be correct. Knightlow in the ordinary usage is the name of a hillock at SP/sq. 4073. See also Dugdale, War., i, 4. It is not near either Kenilworth or the banks of the Avon. (King 1983)

Comments

May be Motslow Hill, Stoneleigh. Knightlow is the name of the hundred of Warwickshire for this general area and Motslow Hill may well have been the Mote for the Knightlow Hundred. Camden writes "Stoneley, where King Henrie the Second founded an Abbay, and just over against it stood in old time a Castle upon Avon called Stoneley-holme, built in Holmeshul, which was destroied when the flaming broiles of Danish warres under King Canutus caught hold of all England." Again this could be Motslow Hill, Stoneleigh but Gatehouse can not associate with a Holme place-name.
Motslow Hill was called a Mote by Dugdale, although clearly in terms of a legal meeting place. Did the writer W. in The Builder, referenced by King, understand the difference between a moot and, the then relatively new term (to English antiquarians), a motte.
The Whitley mentioned by King had described Motslow the year before in The Builder Vol. 45 p. 579-80 and it seems quite unlikely 'W.' is the same.
Without seeing the piece in The Builder it is not possible to be fully certain but it seems likely this is a reference to Motslow Hill, which is on the bank of the River Avon, near Kenilworth and in Knightlow Hundred.

Sources of information, references and further reading

Further information may be available from the holder of the county Historic Environment Record.

Books
- King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 486 (possible)
Periodical Articles
- W., 1884, The Builder Vol. 47 p. 79-80
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Dugdale, Wm., 1656, The Antiquities of Warwickshire (Thomas Warren) p. 3 (Knightlow hill) online copy
  Camden, Wm, 1607, Britannia hypertext critical edition by Dana F. Sutton (2004)

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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.
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