St Mungos Castle

Description

St Mungo's Castle is well preserved as an earthwork and the monument will contain archaeological deposits relating to its construction, use and abandonment and environmental deposits relating to the use of the surrounding area. The monument provides insight into settlement patterns in the medieval period.
The monument includes most of the earthwork and buried remains of a medieval moated site situated on level ground on the east edge of Bromfield adjacent to St Mungo's Church. The moated site includes a sub-rectangular enclosure surrounded by a partial ditch or moat approximately 3m to 4m wide and 0.5m deep. The northern moat ditch is infilled and does not form part of the scheduled monument. (Scheduling Report)

The Rev. James Wilson ... had found mention in a document of 1227 of the Curia de Bromfield, the "court" of Bromfield, i.e. the garth or enclosure belonging to the vicarage, which he identified with the earthwork once known as Mungo Castle and commonly called Bromfield Camp. In such "courts," originally enclosed for farming purposes, the lord's retainers would assemble, and public business would be transacted; whence the name of a "court" of law. This, he thought, was the true meaning of many small earthworks which could never have been of use as fortifications, nor of Roman or British origin (as indeed has been suggested by the editor of these Transactions in the Victoria History of Cumberland, vol. I.). (TCWAAS, 1904)

Comments

Possible homestead moat now dry. Also proposed as site of defended vicar's tower. May be early medieval, a forerunner of late medieval peles. Rejected by Jackson as homestead moat although he writes 'probably the 'Curia (court) de Bromfield' mentioned in 1227. Perriam and Robinson also pretty dismissive recording as 'Earthworks thought to be agricultural.'
The adjacent parish church, dating from the C12, is dedicated to St Mungo so this could well be the 'castle' (in the sense of administrative center) of the parish (as opposed to manor).