Maiden Hill Castle (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Penrith.
In the historic county of Cumberland.
Modern Authority of Cumbria.
1974 county of Cumbria.
Medieval County of Cumberland.

OS Map Grid Reference: NY525331
Latitude 54.69058° Longitude -2.73866°

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

There are no visible remains.

Comments

This is the site of a disused quarry so no archaeology evident and nothing about the location is suggestive of high status occupation.
The source is a translated transcription of a preambulation of King highway from Penrith to Carlisle made c. 1268 as the place where the writ was made. The identification of what was presumable castrum in the source as Maiden Hill is made by Parker. Possibly one of those varied and nuanced medieval uses of the term castrum to mean a place of political importance, in this case as a site of oath taking and giving of testimony.

Sources of information, references and further reading

County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 937.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Old Cumbria Gazetteer
Books
- Perriam, Denis and Robinson, John, 1998, The Medieval Fortified Buildings of Cumbria (Kendal: CWAAS Extra Series 29) p. 210
Periodical Articles
- Parker, F.H.M., 1906, 'Inglewood Forest' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Vol. 6 p. 162 online copy
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- Inquisitions ad quod damnum C143/2/38 (52 Hen III) The National Archive reference
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Clare, T., 1982, A Report on Medieval Fortified Sites in Cumbria (Cumbria CC)

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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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