Eastbach Court Castle Hill (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of English Bicknor.
In the historic county of Gloucestershire.
Modern Authority of Gloucestershire.
1974 county of Gloucestershire.
Medieval County of Gloucestershire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SO58641537
Latitude 51.83540° Longitude -2.60166°

Eastbach Court Castle Hill has been described as a Timber Castle although is doubtful that it was such.

There are no visible remains.

Description

A field is labelled 'Caste hill' on a map of the western part of the Forest of Dean, dating from 1608 (Saxtoy).
NB - A rectified copy of the 1608 map produced by Gordon Clissold shows this field name linked to the adjacent field name, to produce the single name 'Leggcastel Hill'. Examination of a bromide copy ofthe original 1608 map shows this to be incorrect, and the two fields should be labelled individually as 'The Legg' and 'Castle hill' (Pers. comm. L.Butler, 08/06/2004.).
A suspected early Norman timber fortification at Eastbach was re-sited at English Bicknor and later re-built in stone (Walters 1992).
This field name possibly reflects the site of a castle at Eastbach, which was later re-sited at English Bicknor (SMR 249) (Pers. comm. L.Butler, 08/06/2004.). (Gloucestershire SMR)

Comments

Although English Bicknor was probably founded as a village quite late there doesn't seem to be any reason to think that English Bicknor Castle had a precursor on a different site. Eastback may have been a sub manor of Bicknor before the C16 (when it is first recorded as a sub manor) and it may just be possible that there was a small symbolic motte reflecting the knightly status of an early, unrecorded, sub-tenant but it seem more probably the field name relates to part of the demense lands of the main manor of Bicknor.

Sources of information, references and further reading

County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 26848.

Books
- Walters, B., 1992, The Archaeology of Ancient Dean and the Wye Valley (Cheltenham: Thornhill Press)
  Currie, C.R.J. and Herbert, N.M. (eds), 1996, VCH Gloucestershire Vol. 5 p. 101- (parish history) online transcription
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- Jacobi Saxtoy, 1608, The West Part of the Plott of the Forest of Deane in the County of Glos (Map)
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Hoyle, Jon, 2008, The Forest of Dean Gloucestershire Archaeological Survey (Gloucestershire County Council) Vol. 2 p. 115 online copy

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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.
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.

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