Sherborne New Castle (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Sherborne Lodge

In the civil parish of Castleton.
In the historic county of Dorset.
Modern Authority of Dorset.
1974 county of Dorset.
Medieval County of Dorset.

OS Map Grid Reference: ST64911640
Latitude 50.94609° Longitude -2.50064°

Sherborne New Castle has been described as a probable Fortified Manor House, and also as a probable Palace.

There are major building remains.

This is a Grade 1 listed building protected by law*.

Comments

Goodall calls this 'castle-like', presumably referring to the angle turrets, although no author would call this house defensible. (Although many such house were made defensible during the C17 Civil Wars. and some were slighted afterwards.) Raleigh's house was built on the site of a medieval hunting lodge of the deer park associated with Sherborne Old Castle. This castle was taken into royal hands in 1139 and not returned to the bishop of Salisbury until 1354. However, the deer park remained in episcopal hands (Cantor and Wilson). The lodge may have been used as a modest bishops palace during the period the bishops were excluded from the castle and retained as ancillary accommodation when the castle was regained.

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1153912
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 199470; 619209.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) DO14352; 1 023 022.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Sherborne Castle
  Historic Houses Association
  Wikipedia entry
Books
- White, Peter and Cook, Alan, 2015, Sherborne Old Castle, Dorset archaeological investigation 1930-90 (London: Society of Antiquaries of London) p. 24-8
  Goodall, John, 2011, The English Castle 1066-1650 (Yale University Press) p. 446-7
  Cooper, Nicholas, 1999, Houses of the Gentry, 1480-1680 (Yale University Press) p. 22, 118, 121
  RCHME, 1952, An inventory of historical monuments in the County of Dorset Vol. 1: west (HMSO) p. 66 no. 5 online transcription
  Hutchins, J., 1861-73 (3edn), History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset (Blandford) Vol. 4 p. 275-80
Periodical Articles
- Cantor, L.M. and Wilson, J.D., 1966, 'The Medieval Deer Parks of Dorset, V.' Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society Vol. 87 p. 227-9
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Dorset County Council, 2011, Dorset Historic Towns Survey: Sherborne Download 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.

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

Data >	PastScape	County HER		Listing	I. O. E.
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