Great Barford; The Creakers (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Renhold 2

In the civil parish of Great Barford.
In the historic county of Bedfordshire.
Modern Authority of Bedfordshire.
1974 county of Bedfordshire.
Medieval County of Bedfordshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: TL10555305
Latitude 52.16472° Longitude -0.38559°

Great Barford; The Creakers has been described as a Timber Castle although is doubtful that it was such, and also as a probable Fortified Manor House.

There are cropmark/slight earthwork remains.

This is a Grade 2 listed building protected by law*.

Description

Earthwork motte and bailey standing on level ground consisting of a considerable moat with outer bank, round two sides of a central area. From here a mound, some 4 or 5ft high projects to the south. The inner work is protected on the north west by a strong bank and outer ditch forming two sides of a square and retaining angle. Both works may have formed complete enclosures originally. The manor was held by Sephen Crevequer in 1428. The present mansion is C18. (PastScape)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1137826
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 362982.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 818.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- CastleUK.net
Books
- Petre, James Scott, 2012, The Castles of Bedfordshire (Lavenham: Lavenham Press for Shaun Tyas) p. 102-4 (discounted as castle)
  Lowerre, A.G., 2005, Placing Castles in the Conquest. Landscape, Lordship and Local Politics in the South-Eastern Midlands, 1066-1100 (Oxford: John and Erica Hedges Ltd: BAR British Series 385) p. 219
  Salter, Mike, 2002, The Castles of The Thames Valley and The Chilterns (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 15
  Brown, A.E. and Taylor, C.C., 1991, Moated sites in Northern Bedfordshire: Some surveys and wider implications (University of Leicester, Vaughan Paper 35) p. 21
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 6
  Wadmore, Beauchamp, 1920, The Earthworks of Bedfordshire (Bedford) p. 161-3
  Page, Wm (ed), 1912, 'Parishes: Great Barford' VCH Bedfordshire Vol. 3 p. 181-5 (manorial history only online transcription
  Goddard, A.R., 1904, 'Ancient Earthworks' in Doubleday, H.Arthur and Page, Wm (eds), VCH Bedfordshire Vol. 1 p. 183-4, 302-3
Periodical Articles
- Dyer, J.F., 1962-3, 'Bedfordshire Earthworks VIII, The Castles: Part One' Bedfordshire magazine Vol. 8 no. 63 p. 270
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Lowerre, A.G., 2004, Placing Castles in the Conquest. Landscape, Lordship and Local Politics in the South-Eastern Midlands, 1066-1100 (PhD thesis: Boston College) p. 451-2

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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.
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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.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

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