West Dean (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of West Dean.
In the historic county of Wiltshire.
Modern Authority of Wiltshire.
1974 county of Wiltshire.
Medieval County of Wiltshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SU25682746
Latitude 51.04592° Longitude -1.63504°

West Dean has been described as a certain Timber Castle.

There are earthwork remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

The poorly preserved remains of a motte are situated on the wooded crest of a ridge 60m east of the site of the old parish church of St Mary. A circular mound measures 53m in diameter and rises a maximum of 2.9m above the bottom of a shallow ditch which surrounds it. Short stretches of this ditch on the north and south south west have been filled with debris but elsewhere it measures 12m wide and 0.8m deep. The top of the mound was deliberately levelled in C18 for use as a bowling green, which was approached from the south west via a causeway which measures circa 3m wide. (PastScape–ref. RCHME Field Investigation 20-MAR-1992 (CR Lewis))

An earthwork at West Dean (SU 257275), whilst undoubtedly originating as a medieval fortified site, has been modified radically as an ornamental feature within a formal garden setting. The present field monument comprises a circular entrenchment of c. 60m diameter with an interior raised little more than c. 2.5m. Given the large diameter of the earthwork, which argues against it originating as a motte, the most likely scenario is that the rampart of a ringwork has been flattened in the post-medieval period to form the raised bowling green recorded early in the nineteenth century (Master 1855, 242). The artificial reduction of a former rampart also seems likely given the dimensions of the surrounding ditch (c. 1.2m deep yet over 12m wide), which appears to have been substantially filled in. Immediately to the west, the flanks of the gentle ridge that the earthwork surmounts have been modified through the creation of a series of successive garden terraces. In part, these earthworks are almost certainly on the site of a bailey enclosure that formerly enclosed the parish church of St Mary's (RCHM 1987, 119-210), thus demonstrating the juxtaposition of a seat of secular power with a private ecclesiastical foundation. (Creighton 2000)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1005653, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number wi312
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 222959.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) SU22NE452.

Books
- Salter, Mike, 2002, The Castles of Wessex (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 103
  RCHME, 1987, Churches of South-East Wiltshire (London: HMSO) p. 119
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 501
  Renn, D.F., 1973 (2 edn.), Norman Castles of Britain (London: John Baker)
  Pugh, R.B. and Crittall, Elizabeth (eds), 1957, VCH Wiltshire Vol. 1 Part 1 p. 270
  Williams-Freeman, J.P.,1915, An Introduction to Field Archaeology as Illustrated by Hampshire (London) p. 40
Periodical Articles
- Creighton, O.H., 2000, 'Early Castles in the Medieval Landscape of Wiltshire' Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine Vol. 93 p. 111 online copy
  Master, G.S., 1855, 'Collections for a history of West Dean' Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine Vol. 22 p. 242 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.

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