Walls Castle, Ravenglass (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Ravenglass Roman Baths; Glannoventa

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

OS Map Grid Reference: SD08829592
Latitude 54.35072° Longitude -3.40420°

Walls Castle, Ravenglass has been described as a Masonry Castle but is rejected as such.

There are masonry footings remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

The remains of the bath house at Ravenglass Roman Fort, situated just outside the north-east corner of the fort. The remains of the bath house of the fort, established in AD 130, are among the tallest Roman structures surviving in northern Britain: the walls stand almost 4 metres (13 feet) high. Domestic use of the building in the Middle Ages led to the substantial preservation of the site. The site lay in Muncaster Castle Park in the post-medieval period, and was described as 'the ancient dwelling place of the Penningtons' by John Denton in 1610. Excavations in the late nineteenth century and survey work in the 1980s indicated that the bath house was a substantial structure extending beyond the present field boundary, as well as to either side of the existing structures. At least two rooms contained under-floor hypocausts (heating systems). The walls are of regularly coursed sandstone bonded with mortar and rendered internally with pink cement. One of the doorways has a worn threshold and a broad groove to receive a timber doorframe. There are also the remains of windows. The bath house was for use both by Roman soldiers and for civilians who lived in the settlement outside the fort, which extended over much of the present field. The building offered facilities for exercise and sport, as well as for swimming, bathing and socialising. (PastScape)

Reused Roman bath house.
Curwen includes it under Muncaster Castle but makes no statement on its history.
Jackson states that it was 'traditionally the ancient castle of the Penningtons'. Tom Clare syates 'one suggestion is that the building formed the manor house of the Penningtons prior to their removal to Muncaster.' but none of the surviving fabric was considered to be medieval.
Nothing medieval to see and doubtful if it ever was used at that period. (Perriam and Robinson 1998)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1009352, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number 13570
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 1130596.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 2965.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- English Heritage
  Matthew Emmott's Castle Blog
  Visit Cumbria
  Wikipedia entry
  Old Cumbria Gazetteer
Books
- Perriam, Denis and Robinson, John, 1998, The Medieval Fortified Buildings of Cumbria (Kendal: CWAAS Extra Series 29) p. 113 (plan)
  Jackson, M.J., 1990, Castles of Cumbria (Carlisle: Carel Press)
  Clare, T., 1981, Archaeological Sites in the Lake District (Ashbourne: Moorland Publishing)
  Curwen, J.F., 1913, Castles and Fortified Towers of Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire North of the Sands (Kendal: CWAAS Extra Series 13) p. 308
Periodical Articles
- Brann, M.L., 1985, 'A Survey of Walls Castle, Ravenglass, Cumbria' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Vol. 85 p. 81–85 online copy
  Collingwood, R.G., 1928, 'Roman Ravenglass' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Vol. 28 p. 353-366 online copy
  Knowles and Jackson, 1877-8, 'Walls Castle, Ravenglass' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Vol. 3 p. 23-6 online copy
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Ferguson, R.S. (ed.), 1887, An Accompt of the most considerable Estates and Families in the county of Cumberland, from the conquest unto the beginning of the reign of K. James {the first} by John Denton, of Cardew (Kendal: Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Tract Series 2) p. 18 online 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.
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