Author: Triskele Heritage

2 July 2023

(Header Image Credit: Ian S / Wikimedia Commons)

There are many pubs which are claimed to be the oldest. Certain names crop up time and again – the Old Ferryboat Inn, St Ives (claim: 560AD); Porch House, Stow-on-the-Wold (claim: 970AD); or the Old Man & Scythe, Bolton (claim: 1251AD). In this blog we’ve covered the claims of various Nottingham pubs, including Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem (claim: 1189AD), and penned an article on the variables involved in dating ancient inns. Elsewhere, the historian Jon Mein has assessed the claims made by the Ye Olde Fighting Cocks at St Albans to have opened in 793AD (spoiler: it probably didn’t).

One name is repeatedly listed as a potential contender – the Bingley Arms at Bardsey-cum-Rigton, which is claimed to date back to 953AD. In this article I’m going to outline the evidence for the date of this West Yorkshire boozer.

The Claim

The Bingley Arms’ website makes the following claim: “The Bingley Arms is no ordinary pub. It’s the original English pub – officially the oldest in Britain – dating back over 1000 years to a time when Vikings were conquering parts of the country and before England had its first King.” The date on the website is a tad non-specific, but the pub’s social media account is proudly entitled The Bingley Arms 953ad. Around the building there are various signs which also proclaim the origin date of 953AD. One example even indicates that the Bingley Arms is “England’s Oldest Inn Recorded in the Guinness Book of Records”.

The Bingley Arms (Image Credit: JThomas / Wikimedia Commons)

Elsewhere, the Yorkshire Post ran an article, in July 2019, which claimed that: “The hostelry is mentioned in the Domesday Book and has a recorded history dating back to 953AD”.

To summarise, the various claims include the following statements:

• The Bingley Arms predates England’s first king.
• The pub is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086.
• It is officially the oldest pub in Britain according to the Guinness Book of Records.
• The building dates to 953AD.

This all sounds very definitive… but can any of it be verified?

England’s First King

The development of the kingdom of England took place during a protracted period from the second half of the ninth to the earlier tenth century. Broadly speaking, the political and military circumstances brought about by Viking incursions during the mid-ninth century led to the gradual expansion of the kingdom of Wessex. Under the rule of the kings Alfred, Edward, and Aethelstan the formerly independent states of Mercia, East Anglia and Northumbria were incorporated into a single political entity which became known as England.

Aethelstan is widely noted to have been the first king of a united England after the capitulation of the Viking kingdom centred on York in 927. Although the situation remained fluid, most early mediaeval historians agree that it was Aethelstan who can be reliably named as England’s first king (Livingston 2021, 93-98; Holland 2016, 56-61; Stenton 1971, 340-41).

Detail of Aethelstan presenting a book (Image Credit: Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge / Wikimedia Commons)

Given that Aethelstan was in control of Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria by 927, it may not be historically accurate to say that the Bingley Arms (which is claimed to date to 953) was built at a time “before England had its first King.”

Domesday Book

The Bingley Arms is not alone in being noted to be referenced in the Domesday Book. The assertion is also made by the Royal Standard of England at Forty Green, Buckinghamshire (another claimant to be the oldest pub in the country). However, according to an authoritative history of the Great British boozer published by English Heritage (now called Historic England): “The Domesday Survey of 1086, which deals with the value of land and identifies those holding it, has not a single mention of alehouses or other drinking establishments” (Brandwood, Davison & Slaughter 2004, 3).

The Domesday Book (Image Credit: The National Archives)

The text of the Domesday Book is freely available to access online and the statement that there are no pubs included within it can be easily checked. Brandwood et al seem to be entirely correct; therefore, the Bingley Arms is unlikely to be mentioned in the 1086 survey.

Guinness World Records

There are at least three pubs which currently claim that Guinness World Records have included them as an entry for the category of oldest pub: Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, St Albans; Sean’s Bar, Athlone; and the Bingley Arms. The problem with the contention is that Guinness World Records do not maintain a category for oldest pub. Although they may once have done so, their website is now completely empty for such a category. They have even confirmed this via their official social media account.

Given that Guinness World Records no longer monitor the category of oldest pub, the Bingley Arms might no longer officially hold such a title.

The Date of 953AD

We must be extremely cautious of any claim that a building dates to the early mediaeval period. The architectural historians Mary and Nigel Kerr have pointed out that there are around 400 buildings in the country which can genuinely claim to have pre-Norman fabric within their structure – and all of them are ecclesiastical (Kerr & Kerr 1983, 7). Research indicates that we probably do not have any roofed, domestic, secular buildings surviving anywhere in England from the tenth century. This appears to put the claim of the Bingley Arms to date to 953 into some doubt.

The listed building entry by Historic England for the Bingley Arms points to it being a mid-eighteenth building with later nineteenth and twentieth century remodelling. It bears a close similarity to other stone-built structures in the region constructed around the same period. The listing even notes a date stone of 1738, which may refer to the year of construction. The entry also makes it clear that the inspector saw the property both externally and internally; so we can have a reasonable degree of confidence in the assessment.

The Bingley Arms (Image Credit: Mtaylor848 / Wikimedia Commons)

The architectural details of the building chime well with this assessment. The historic core of the pub is built entirely from locally quarried Carboniferous sandstone. During the mediaeval period, stone was mostly used in West Yorkshire for high status construction projects such as castles, great houses, abbeys, priories, and churches. Gradually, it became used in manor houses from the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Stone was only routinely extended to non-elite domestic buildings, such as the Bingley Arms, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Lott 2023, 4). Prior to this period vernacular architecture was dominated by timber-framed structures (Giles 1986, 26-47). Further features which help to date the building to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries include the details of doors, sash windows, beam stops, and fireplaces (Hall 2005, 42-44, 76-82, 158-63, 180-86). However, much of the pub’s fixtures and fittings date to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

The material culture of the Bingley Arms points towards a primary construction date in the mid-eighteenth century with evidence for later remodelling.

Myth-making

The claim that the building dates to 953 is made so often that it is widely believed and repeated. The source of the claim may be the business itself as repetition always seems to circle back to the pub’s own publicity materials. A recent article published by Leeds Live, which backs up the 953 date, made no attempt at critical evaluation and reads as a regurgitation of details published on the Bingley Arms’ website.

It is not possible to confidently identify the source of the 953 claims, but the date may be a nod in the direction of the tower at All Hallows, Bardsey cum Rigton. The latter is conventionally assumed to date to 850-950 (NHLE 1135652; Pevsner & Radcliffe 1967, 89). It is not uncommon for the claims of other pubs to attempt to link with the established early histories of their settlements – as may have happened with Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, St Albans and Porch House, Stow-on-the-Wold. The implication being that if the settlement existed then there *must* have been a pub. Unfortunately, this may be a logical fallacy.

One problem for the tenth century assertion is that there has yet to be any archaeological or archival evidence presented. The claim is repeated, and the stories are told, but the evidence is never offered. Popular folklore suggests that the building dates to the tenth century whereas archaeological research points in the direction of the eighteenth century.

Meanwhile, the Bingley Arms has yet to be cited as an ancient building in the hard-nosed, peer reviewed and authoritative texts on the history of public houses (for example: Brunning 2014; Brandwood, Davison & Slaughter 2004; Haydon 1994). There are genuinely ancient pubs still surviving from the mediaeval period; including the George Inn, Norton St Philip (dated c 1375 and remodelled 1430) and the New Inn, Gloucester (dated (1430-32); but they do not pre-date the later fourteenth century. The claim that the Bingley Arms is a tenth century building is almost worthy of the controversial pseudo-archaeologist Graham Hancock himself!

Conclusions

Most of the pubs which claim to be the oldest in the country seem to present little in the way of evidence to back up the dates on their signs. The majority – including the Ferryboat, Fighting Cocks, Porch House, Trip to Jerusalem and Old Man & Scythe – are housed within post-mediaeval buildings and probably did not open until the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. Alas, it is unfortunate to write, that a good rule of thumb is to gently discount whatever date is painted on a pub sign because even the quickest piece of research may usually prove it incorrect.

There is nothing especially unusual in the Bingley Arms’ claim to be tenth century or that news outlets and popular websites regurgitate that date without critical evaluation. There may be a desire, on the part of some people, to want to believe invented histories. Such views might reinforce an emotionally driven, rose-tinted, misty-eyed, romantic view of the past which ye olde British boozer seems to specialise in.

I genuinely do not have any ulterior motive in writing this article. I have nothing against the past or present landlords of the Bingley Arms. I wish them well. However, history matters. It is a major component of local and national identity. Unfortunately, the popularly believed tenth century date for the Bingley Arms might not be supported by the evidence. Instead, it is probably a building of the mid-eighteenth century and later.

The fact that the pub may be eighteenth century should not be a source of shame or disappointment. By embracing a verifiable and accurate history the locals and tourists who patronise the Bingley Arms could still proudly support a thriving business which is providing excellent food and drink. It is the community value of the pub that is of greatest significance here.

Dedication

This article is dedicated to the bafflingly eccentric persistence of Phillip Wood.

References

Brandwood, G., Davison, A., & Slaughter, M., 2004, Licensed to Sell – The History and Heritage of the Public House. English Heritage. Swindon.

Brunning, T., 2014, Merrie England: The Medieval Roots of the Great British Pub. Bright Pen.

Giles, C., 1986, Rural Houses of West Yorkshire, 1400-1830. Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England. London.

Hall, L., 2005, Period House Fixtures and Fittings, 1300-1900. Countryside Books. Newbury.

Haydon, P., 1994, The English Pub. Robert Hale. London.

Holland, T., 2016, Athelstan – The Making of England. Allen Lane. London.

Kerr, M. & N., 1983, Anglo-Saxon Architecture. Shire. Princes Risborough.

Livingston, M., 2021, Never Greater Slaughter – Brunanburh and the Birth of England. Osprey. Oxford.

Lott, G., 2023, West and South Yorkshire: Building Stones of England. Historic England. Swindon.

Pevsner, N. & Radcliffe, E., 1967, The Buildings of England: Yorkshire – West Riding. Penguin. London.

Stenton, F., 1971, Anglo-Saxon England. Clarendon Press. Oxford.

About the author

James Wright (Triskele Heritage) is an award-winning buildings archaeologist who frequently writes and lectures on the subject of mediaeval building myths. He has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to find meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the mediaeval period.

He welcomes contact through Twitter or email.

The Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog blog is the basis of a forthcoming book – Historic Building Mythbusting – Uncovering Folklore, History and Archaeology which will be released via The History Press on 6 June 2024. More information can be found here:

Historic Building Mythbusting by James Wright

28 May 2023

Header Image Credit: Ensum Brown

Secret passage tales are ubiquitous. This blog has covered several unfounded rumours already – including examples of the genre at Stone, Tintern, Guildford, and Burton-upon-Trent. There has also been an attempt to look at the underlying reasons for the continued popularity of hidden tunnel folklore.

There was a real flurry of online excitement when an apparently real secret passage was listed for sale in Fowlmere (Cambridgeshire) by the estate agents Ensum Brown in May 2023. Hill View Cottage was listed as including: “original period features, 2 reception rooms, 4 bedrooms over 2 floors, and a delightful enclosed garden.”

Hill View Cottage, Fowlmere, Cambridgeshire (Credit: Ensum Brown)

All pretty basic stuff, until the entry took a turn for the unexpected:

“There is also a door down to a basement area, with lots of space for storage, as well as a historic underground tunnel!

The Tunnel goes from Hill View Cottage and joins up with several historic properties in the village, with a small central meeting room. It was likely to have been built when Henry VIII created the church of England and was most likely used by Catholics and Protestants as an escape route when persons of authority visited, so as to avoid persecution. It is believed this could be the last remaining access to the tunnel, with others having been sealed off.”

There is even a photograph (see header image) and a Youtube video (hilariously soundtracked with The Jam’s 1980 number one hit single Going Underground) that has, at time of writing, been viewed over 9,700 times. This is no mere rumour, its allegedly the real deal! Or is it…

BBC Reporting

Well, the BBC certainly thought that it was real because, on 25 May 2023, they published an article about the 30 metre, L-shaped feature cut through the natural chalk under the headline: “Fowlmere: House over Reformation tunnel goes on the market” and incorporated a direct quotation from the estate agents’ listing.

Their investigative journalism knew no bounds as the anonymous journalist went on to note that there were “historical records” which proved that “the tunnel – which is 5ft 9in (1.75m) at its deepest and just 33in (0.8m) at its narrowest points – stretches under the road towards the war memorial, where it changes direction towards the Old Manor House on the other side of the High Street.”

Old Manor House, Fowlmere, Cambridgeshire (Credit: Mike Hallett / Historic England)

Finally, Auntie Beeb spoke to a local parish councillor – Deborah Roberts – who went on to explain that: “The house was once lived in by the parish curate of St Mary’s Church, but as things got difficult he would have needed a quick escape route.” She also noted that the local village pub, The Chequers, was connected to the labyrinth.

To sum up the claims by the BBC, Ensum Brown and Deborah Roberts:

• There is a chalk-cut tunnel which links Hill View Cottage and the Old Manor House in Fowlmere, Cambridgeshire, as well as several other properties in the village including the Chequers.
• The tunnel is 30 metres long by 1.75 metres at its deepest and 0.8 metres at its shallowest.
• The tunnel was dug beneath the house of the parish curate, shortly after the English Reformation, so that both Catholics and Protestants could escape from Henry VIII’s persecutions.

Questions

There is absolutely no denying that this tunnel exists. However, can we be certain of its form, date, and function?

The first point to note is that we can probably discount rumours that other buildings are connected to this tunnel. Both the video and a plan of the feature, published in 1980, make it fairly clear that only Hill View Cottage and the Old Manor House are linked. Admittedly, there is a “blocked side-creep” (Pennick 1980) to the north-west of the Old Manor House entrance, but this is heading in the opposite direction to the Chequers (which is 107 metres to the north-east). There is no evidence to suggest where the blocked passage leads or how far it extends.

Plan of the Fowlmere tunnel (Credit: Pennick 1980)

Secondly, both the estate agents and the BBC make the claim that the tunnel dates to the sixteenth century and is in some way connected to Henry VIII’s Reformation. Somewhat oddly, it is alleged that both Catholics and Protestants used the tunnel – despite being on opposing sides in the religious turmoil. No physical evidence is supplied to underpin these claims.

The BBC hinted that: “Details with the property suggested the tunnel “was likely to have been built when Henry VIII created the Church of England…” However, no explicit reference is made as to what these “details” might be. Although, in the next paragraph there is a link to “historical records” – which takes the reader to an article entitled “The Underground Tunnel at Fowlmere, Cambridgeshire” by Nigel Pennick. This piece was published in the Journal of Geomancy vol. 4 no. 2 in January 1980.

The Journal of Geomancy was a short-lived publication which ran from 1976 until 1981. It was the brainchild of Nigel Pennick – who authored the Fowlmere article, edited, typed, and produced the journal, provided much of the copy and was the head of the Institute of Geomantic Research (IGR). According to their own publicity leaflet, the IGR encouraged research into: “landscape geometry; ley lines, terrestrial figures and zodiacs; feng shui and allied sciences; sacred geometry; cosmological town planning; earth energies and dowsing; astro-archaeology; ancient stones and the modelling of the landscape.”

The IGR was one man’s quest into the world of pseudo-science and pseudo-archaeology. We must be extremely cautious of basing any firm historical or archaeological conclusions on the work of a self-confessed geomancer given how widely discredited his field of research has been.

Reformation

However, if read very carefully, Pennick’s article does have some merit. First, it includes a reasonably accurate plan of the feature. Second, his research into the graffiti inscriptions determined that the tunnel had been accessible since at least the 1880s, and perhaps as far back into the eighteenth century. Third, that village folklore connected the tunnel to religious persecutions but, crucially, Pennick was sceptical of that.

Pennick critically cites the work of the local rector, Mr Yorke, who published an article on the tunnel in The History Teacher’s Miscellany for 1925. Yorke concocted a story, based on little or no evidence, that the tunnel was the creation of John Morden, rector of Fowlmere between 1610 and 1644. The latter was apparently removed from office on the orders of Oliver Cromwell and the tunnel was excavated so that he could access the Old Manor House to deliberate with, his patron and sympathiser, the local worthy Edward Aldred.

It is true that Morden was preferred as rector by Aldred and that he was removed from office in 1644 for his high church, Laudian, beliefs (Baggs Keeling and Meekings 1982, 155-64). However, Yorke made the assumption that the presence of the tunnel revealed where the renegade rector lived – Hill View Cottage. However, there is simply no archaeological or historic evidence to connect the tunnel or Hill View Cottage with Morden or the religious struggles that took place within the British Civil Wars of the mid-seventeenth century.

The story, as presented by the estate agents and the BBC, is yet another interpretation which tracks back in time from the British Civil Wars of the seventeenth century to the English Reformation of the 1530s and 40s. Yet again, though, there is no physical or documentary evidence presented which proves that the tunnel was constructed during this period. The “historical records” for the sixteenth century date, cited by the BBC, is Pennick’s article. Yet Pennick wrote only of Yorke’s seventeenth century story and was highly sceptical of any connection between the tunnel and the religious turbulence of the Early Modern period.

Strangely, Pennick did not offer up an explanation for the function of the tunnel. Instead, he was more concerned with the shape of the feature. The tunnel goes north-east from the Old Manor House before taking a sharp turn at a point directly under the Fowlmere war memorial and then heading south-east to Hill View Cottage. Pennick thought that the L-shaped deviation was a result of the presence of a ley line running east-west through the site of the war memorial. He speculated: “Could it be that the tunnellers had a dowser with them whose job it was to detect any such energy flows? Coming across a flow during the construction meant that a direction change had to be made so as not to disrupt the flow.”

We are far out into the reaches of pseudo-archaeology here.

Function

There is no direct evidence linking the tunnel to ley lines or the religious upheavals of the Early Modern period. However, rumours of secret passages used as escape routes for persecuted Catholics is a common trope in such folklore. During the post-mediaeval period Catholics were viewed with deep suspicion by the English establishment as the enemy within. Several Catholic conspiracies to undermine the state were unmasked and the perpetrators were tortured and executed mercilessly. The most famous of these seditious plots was, of course, the Powder Treason of 1605.

The Gunpowder Plot Conspirators, 1605 (Credit: National Portrait Gallery / Wikimedia Commons)

The notion that Catholics required secret passages to escape into or had tunnels dug so that they could covertly move between properties is so common. We may be seeing evidence for Protestant fears that those damned Catholics *must* be up to something! Such stories even persist to this day – as the example at Fowlmere demonstrates.

If the tunnel isn’t connected to fleeing Catholics, then what was it for?

The first clue is probably contained within the flint rich Upper Chalk (now more commonly referred to as the White Chalk by geologists) which is the underlying geology beneath Fowlmere. Industrial chalk extraction still takes place within Cambridgeshire, at Barrington and Steeple Morden, but was once more widespread and included historic quarrying at places such as Cherry Hinton, Great Chishill and Harlton. Extraction was often in the form of open-cast pits, but adits could also be driven into the ground as happened at Balsham.

Chalk adit at Balsham, Cambridgeshire (Credit: Bikin Glyn / 28dayslater.co.uk)

The form of the Fowlmere tunnel indicates that it was probably not cut in a single event. The tunnel is approximately 1.75 metres in height at its entrance but dips down to just 0.8 metres and then turns through a sharp angle of 60 degrees. The fact that the roof of the tunnel does not have a consistent height and is very low in its central section may indicate that it was not used for human traffic. The form of the tooling in the Fowlmere tunnel is remarkably like that at Balsham and we may be looking at two chalk adits, dug out from two adjacent properties, which unwittingly collided.

There were many reasons that landowners might have wished to dig chalk adits. First, in the context of a village settlement, land was at a premium so tunnelling was a convenient option. Second, open cast chalk pits took up a great deal of space which could not then be used for agriculture or building upon. Third, chalk was a valuable commodity which could be used for agricultural lime, road building, brick manufacture and walling. Equally, the flints found within the chalk also had varied uses including construction, gunpowder ignition and ceramic manufacture.

Put simply: the physical evidence seems to indicate that the Fowlmere tunnel was probably two chalk adits rather than a secret access for persecuted Catholics. The proposed reality may be less romantic, but this argument is based on archaeological observation rather than local folklore.

Conclusions

The natural chalk and flint geology of Fowlmere is an economic asset that was probably exploited by the historic occupants of the Old Manor House and Hill View Cottage. We cannot be certain when these colliding adits were dug, but dated graffiti inscriptions indicate that the tunnels were open from at least the 1880s and possibly from the eighteenth century.

Although there has been speculation, since at least 1925, that the tunnels were in some way connected to the persecution of Catholics, there is no clear proof that this was the case. The reasons for including such a romantic story in the property sales particulars is clear enough. Neil Wise, of Ensum Brown, noted that most properties “get around 60 clicks a day on Rightmove – this one received over 10,000 in a single day at the weekend“.

It is perhaps rather disheartening to see that the BBC reported hearsay as if it were historical fact without any attempt to critically evaluate the story. Yet, similar conclusions were also made, apparently without fact-checking, when the BBC covered the discovery of a “secret medieval tunnel” at Tintern, in 2021. This turned out to be a water conduit from the industrial manufacture of wire in the Angiddy valley (see Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog #5). Unfortunately, such credulous reporting of secret passage myths does media outlets no credit and only serves to muddy the waters of fact and fiction.

References

Baggs, A. P., Keeling, S. M. & Meekings, C. A. F., 1982, ‘Parishes: Fowlmere‘, in Wright, A. M. P. (ed.), A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 8. Victoria County History. London. pp155-164. 

Pennick, N., 1980, ‘The Underground Tunnel at Fowlmere, Cambridgeshire’ in Pennick, N. (ed.) Journal of Geomancy Volume 4, Number 2. Institute of Geomantic Research. Cambridge.

About the author

James Wright (Triskele Heritage) is an award-winning buildings archaeologist who frequently writes and lectures on the subject of mediaeval building myths. He has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to find meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the mediaeval period.

He welcomes contact through Twitter or email.

The Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog blog is the basis of a forthcoming book – Historic Building Mythbusting – Uncovering Folklore, History and Archaeology which will be released via The History Press on 6 June 2024. More information can be found here:

Historic Building Mythbusting by James Wright

10 April 2023

Over the course of a wet Bank Holiday weekend, I have seen lots of online requests, by owners of historic buildings, for help in dating their property. The pages of Your Old House and the Mediaeval and Tudor Period Buildings Group have been bursting with such queries. I’ve genuinely not seen so many similar threads since the early days of the first pandemic lockdown. It seems that the wet weather has forced people to spend an extended period trapped inside. There comes a point, after looking at the same four walls for a long while, where certain landowners start to think… “Just how old is my house and how can I find out?”

With the question posed on social media groups, an army of well-meaning folk are happy to offer cheerful advice on how to get the job done quickly. The same phrases keep popping up: “Look at some old maps!”, “Check the property deeds!” or “Go to your local record office!” In the three minutes that I have been typing this blog I’ve received eight alerts of such pieces of advice being posted.

Lancashire Archives (Credit: James Wright / Triskele Heritage)

Now, at a very basic level, this advice isn’t bad. Its baseline data. Its stuff that the professional historic building researcher will do. However, it will only take you so far. If the property is more than a few decades old, it is unlikely to give you the answer to that vital question: “How old is my house?”

I’m going to use this blog to try and (gently) explain why archival trawls rarely offer the solution to this specific query and how it is sometimes possible to get at the solution.

Here’s the TL, DR answer… For truly ancient properties the answer is twofold: 1) spend years training and gaining experience as a buildings archaeologist, or, 2) commission a buildings archaeologist to do the work for you. The latter will probably be quicker, cheaper and cause less stress, heartache, and career penury.

A Worrying Commission

During 2019, I received a commission from the landowner of a property in the very well-heeled village of Southwell, Nottinghamshire. They called me to discuss a project which had two basic research questions: 1) How old is my house? and, 2) Who was the architect? My stomach churned. I knew that I was going to have a very difficult conversation with my client. I needed to let them know that I could not guarantee to answer either question for definite, but in such a way that they wouldn’t immediately slam down the phone and try someone else who would promise the earth.

Southwell Minster, looking east (Credit: James Wright / Triskele Heritage)

Even though this house was not particularly ancient (a site recce told me that it was entirely eighteenth century or later) and it was a fairly posh building in a village with good documentary sources, I was concerned that it is still rare to be able to answer the posed questions. In the end, after months of exhaustive research, I was able to tell the landowner that the building might have been constructed during the period c 1762-74 and that it may have been designed by a local builder named Francis Ingleman. An equivocal response, but about as close as I could get given that no precise documentation existed – despite the building being only around 250 years in age. For anything much older the documents would probably not have existed.

Mapping the Maps

The key to the Southwell commission was historic mapping coupled with some family history. In 1780, a local antiquarian noted that a specific family had recently built the house and further analysis showed that one of their number had inherited wealth in 1762. The earliest map to show the house was made in 1774. The architecture, known history of the village’s development, family history and mapping seemed to triangulate on the period c 1762-74. However, I could not be certain and had to really argue the case.

The Southwell building went up during a relatively fortunate era – we were entering a golden age of map-making. Parliamentary acts led to the creation of hundreds of enclosure maps between c 1750 and c 1830 (Hey 1996, 153-54). This was followed by the creation tithe maps, largely made between 1836 and 1852 (Hey 1996, 439-40). Finally, the Ordnance Survey was established in 1841, although there are some limited military maps which precede this date (Hey 1996, 333-35). Despite this, many regions were not mapped by the OS until much later; Southwell included – the first map to cover the village did not arrive until 1885.

Map surveyors depicted on an eighteenth century enclosure map (Credit: James Wright / Triskele Heritage / Nottinghamshire Archives)

Earlier maps are variable. Some were made by commercial surveyors. For example, John Chapman’s 1774 map of Nottinghamshire; which first showed the house at Southwell (Henstock 2003).  Others were estate maps made for private landowners – such as the Welbeck Atlas which was surveyed between 1629 and 1640 to represent 81 manors owned by William Cavendish, earl of Newcastle (Mastoris 2017). Such early modern maps are vanishingly rare and can only be consulted in exceptional circumstances.

Even when a structure was built, or remodelled, during the era of map-making reference to them will usually only give a date range. For example, historic maps of Greasley Castle Farm, Nottinghamshire, revealed that numerous brick buildings were added to a stone-built farmyard at some point between George Sanderson’s map, surveyed 1830-34, and the Ordnance Survey map, plotted 1877-78. However, archaeological survey was able to narrow this down to 1832 through reference to craftsperson graffiti (Wright 2022, 30).

Greasley Castle Farm, looking north (Credit: James Wright / Triskele Heritage)

For most properties, historic maps are useful but, if a structure was built before the mid-eighteenth century, they are unlikely to help with identifying the date of primary construction. The answers will lie in a period before accurate mapping and can only be accessed through analysis of archival records and buildings archaeology.

Title Deeds

The deeds which come with a property are often assumed to be a “sovereign specific” for dating a building. Surely, the owners of a property will have diligently maintained the records of the building stretching right back to its construction? This common fallacy may be related to the experience of ownership of relatively modern buildings. Historic deeds are often entirely missing as the 1925 Law of Property Act abolished the need to prove ownership beyond three decades. This means that, although some deeds (previously held by property solicitors) were deposited in local record offices, many were jettisoned.

There is also a widespread misconception about what information is contained within the deeds. Title deeds are legal documents which relate the transference property from one owner to another. ‘The deeds give information about vendors and purchasers, the agreed price, some description of the property, and (from 1840) a plan’ (Hey 1996, 127). Useful information to the social historian but, for the archaeologist, there is no indication of when buildings were initially constructed.

I am currently working with a historian to unpick data from a lengthy sequence of title deeds for a former public house in Essex. Astonishingly, the documents stretch back to the late seventeenth century. However, at no point do they ever discuss construction work of any kind. This is despite the abundance of evidence from the building’s archaeology that many structures were erected from the fifteenth to the twentieth century. It is a very ancient building, but the deeds are completely silent on the first two centuries of the property’s existence.

Essex Record Office (Credit: James Wright / Triskele Heritage)

Title deeds are useful in establishing the social history and transference of ownership, but they rarely offer up a solution to the date of construction. Once again, it is a combination of further archival research and buildings archaeology which have the potential to unlock the mystery.

Trawling the Archives

In 2011, whilst working for Museum of London Archaeology, I headed off to the Wellcome Collection to look up an early twentieth century property in Croxley Green, Hertfordshire. It transpired that the building had been commissioned by a famous surgeon and his diaries, held at the archive, revealed not only the date of construction but also the name of the architect. I cannot begin to articulate just how rare this find was. My client in Southwell would have jumped for joy. I had never hit such a goldmine before and have failed to do so since.

Assigning a specific construction period to a house, purely on archival evidence, is dependent on the survival of documents. This will be reliant on a set of fortunate circumstances which led to their retention and deposition within a public archive. The case at Croxley Green was unusual and preservation of the archive was only brought about by the fame of the surgeon coupled with the acquisitions policy of the repository.

It may come as a shock to learn that most buildings do not have any documentation available – and this includes some very famous structures. There has been a decided uncertainty about the construction date of the great tower at Warkworth Castle, Northumberland. Now in the care of English Heritage, the great tower of Percy family has been estimated to date from anywhere between the mid-fourteenth century and the early sixteenth century on architectural grounds (Johnson 2002, 101-04). This was the castle of one of the premier families in mediaeval England whose line are still the dukes of Northumberland to this day. Yet, crucially, there is not a shred of documentation surviving.

Warkworth Castle, looking north (Credit: James Wright / Triskele Heritage)

I have just written a journal article on the dating of Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire. Here, some patchy building accounts from the mid-fifteenth century do survive (Simpson 1960). They span the years 1434-35, 1448-39, 1439-40 and 1445-46, but we do not know from them in exactly which years the project began and ended. Moreover, the famous brick great tower is mentioned only once (‘le dongeon’) – during the 1445-46 building season. Some commentators have taken this to mean that the tower was begun that season and can therefore be dated c 1445-1455 (Harvey 1978, 183). Others think that it is a bit earlier, perhaps c 1440-50 (Emery 2000, 310-11). New archaeological evidence, briefly covered in a prior Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog, has come to light which may indicate that construction work began during the second half the 1420s. However, without the science of dendrochronology the archival evidence traditionally put the tower two decades later.

Warkworth and Tattershall were major buildings created for the highest in the land. Yet neither has reliable documentation for their construction… what chance is there for more humble buildings to appear in the archives?

Tattershall Castle, looking south-west (Credit: James Wright / Triskele Heritage)

House Histories

The first part of any archaeological building survey report will usually be an outline of the known historic background. Sometimes the documents can genuinely take us right back to the moment of construction. At Greasley Castle, Nottinghamshire, a licence to crenellate was issued to Nicholas, 3^rd Baron Cantelupe on 5 April 1340 by Edward III (Davis 2006-07, 239; Wright 2022, 10). This kind of data is momentously rare. On other projects the archival frustration is high!

A colleague and I recently discovered that there were only 23 documents pertaining to an entire Lancashire village… and none of them referred to the property that we were researching in any way. In most cases, the building in question will appear in the records but the earliest reference will be long after the primary construction took place. For example, records linked to a Worcestershire farmhouse, that I worked on in 2020, began in 1540 yet the archaeological evidence suggested that the building dated to the mid-fifteenth century.

Library at the Society of Antiquaries of London (Credit: James Wright / Triskele Heritage)

On some projects I will work alongside tremendously talented house history researchers such as Karen Averby, Gill Blanchard and Melanie Backe-Hansen to construct incredibly detailed social histories for properties. Their trade relies on unpicking a multitude of resources including architect’s plans, building accounts, references in personal papers (letters, diaries, financial papers etc.), newspaper articles, genealogies, valuations, inventories etc. We work well together because their great skills are in teasing out archival details that are perhaps beyond the abilities of this archaeologist. However, when the records cease before a construction date has been established, it may only be the discipline of buildings archaeology which can point towards a structure’s origins.

Buildings Archaeology

The field of buildings archaeology developed throughout the mid- to late-twentieth century. It is a multi-disciplinary technique which aims to deploy ‘all of the tools in the toolkit’ to understand the origin, form, function, fabric, history, significance, context, development, and phasing of historic structures. Projects can include archival research, oral history, structural observation, photography, drawings (sketches, measured sketches, and metrically accurate scaled drawings), photogrammetry, 3D laser scans and dendrochronology.

Buildings archaeology survey at Greasley Castle (Credit: James Wright / Triskele Heritage)

Buildings archaeology can be targeted towards structures of any period and type. In my career, I have recorded a twelfth century palace, thirteenth century church, fourteenth century castle, fifteenth century barn, sixteenth century house, seventeenth century farm, eighteenth century windmill, nineteenth century pumping station and a twentieth century hospital. When it comes to the dating of such structures, we have already looked in detail at the variables in a former Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog, in January 2023, but it must be noted that there are two broad methods: scientific and stylistic.

The science of dendrochronology was the subject of a Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog, in January 2022, which demonstrated that felling dates are a strong indicator for the period of construction. Tree-ring dating has proved invaluable to the better understanding of timber-framed buildings. For example, 22-24 Kirkgate, Newark (Nottinghamshire) was listed as being late fifteenth century, yet dendrochronology later provided a felling date of 1337. Elsewhere, 40 Westhorpe, Southwell (Nottinghamshire) was listed as seventeenth century, yet tree-ring data indicated a felling range of 1332-57 – a significant disparity of approximately 250-350 years.

Dendrochronology at Tattershall Castle, Lincolnshire (Credit: James Wright / Triskele Heritage)

Although dendrochronology has the potential to provide scientifically accurate felling ranges or dates, there may be cases when timbers fail to yield a date or it cannot be deployed due to limited project budgets. In these situations, buildings can be dated by stylistic methods which rely on a careful assessment of the development of a building and the recording of primary architectural features which are reliably datable. Such features may include in-situ doors, windows, fireplaces, panelling, staircases, and roofs. A good starter for looking at this subject is Linda Hall’s incredibly useful book: Period Fixtures & Fittings, 1300-1900 (Countryside Books, 2005). I take it to literally every single site with me.

Dating by stylistic methods will vary according to both time and place. For example, the presence of a crownpost roof in Yorkshire might be expected in the years c 1280-1450. Meanwhile, the same design appears in Essex at around the same time but was still in use until c 1570. In other circumstances, clasped side purlin roofs were constructed in Yorkshire from c 1325 whilst they did not become widespread in Essex until c 1525 (Walker 2011, 18, 24-26). 

A recent project by Triskele Heritage at Ivy Cottage, Wollaton, Nottinghamshire, was able to refine the dating of the building using stylistic methods. Survey work demonstrated that the primary build was a combination of stone and timber-framing and that there was a queenpost roof structure that would be unlikely in the region prior to c 1550. The roof had then been ceiled during the seventeenth century through the insertion of a floor frame incorporating stylistically diagnostic scroll and notch chamfer stops on a bridging beam.

Ivy Cottage, Wollaton, Nottinghamshire. Looking west (Credit: James Wright / Triskele Heritage)

Buildings archaeology can usually triangulate the available evidence to provide a date to within half a century. This might sound like a wide margin of error but without unambiguous documentary and scientific evidence it is rare to be able to get much closer.

Conclusions

Please do not feel that I am denigrating the advice of others here. Checking the maps, deeds and archives is basic level stuff and all good research projects should incorporate such data. Equally, establishing a historic background for a property is an essential requirement for most detailed research projects. The work of social historians is to be greatly valued.

For more recent buildings historic research may be enough to establish a date of construction. However, archival research will only ever tell part of the story. Even relatively modern buildings will feature structural phases which have gone completely unrecorded.

To go back further in time – into the mediaeval and early modern periods – buildings archaeology may be the only option for understanding the date of a building. This is especially true for non-elite structures but, to the surprise of many, some buildings of the great can only be unlocked using buildings archaeology. However, the discipline can prove surprisingly illuminating when applied to buildings of any period.

References

Davis, P., 2006-7, ‘English Licences to Crenellate: 1199-1567’ in The Castle Studies Group Journal Vol. 20. Castle Studies Group. pp226-45.

Emery, A., 2000, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales Vol. 2 East Anglia, Central England and Wales. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.

Hall, L., 2005, Period Fixtures & Fittings, 1300-1900. Countryside Books. Newbury.

Harvey, J., 1978, The Perpendicular Style. Batsford. London.

Henstock, A. (ed.), 2003, Chapman’s Map of Nottinghamshire, 1774. Nottinghamshire County Council. Nottingham.

Hey, D. (ed.), 1996, The Oxford Companion to Local and Family History. Oxford University Press. Oxford and New York.

Johnson, M., 2002, Behind the Castle Gate – From Medieval to Renaissance. Routledge. London and New York.

Mastoris, S., 2017, The Welbeck Atlas – William Senior’s Maps of the Estates of William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle: 169-1640. Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire. Nottingham.

Simpson, W. D., 1960, The Building Accounts of Tattershall Castle, 1434-72. Lincoln Record Society No. 55.

Stenning, D., ‘East Anglian Roofs: An Essex-centric View’ in Walker, J. (ed.) The English Medieval Roof: Crownpost to Kingpost. Essex Historic Buildings Group.

Walker, J., 2011, ‘Introduction and Overview’ in Walker, J. (ed.) The English Medieval Roof: Crownpost to Kingpost. Essex Historic Buildings Group.

Wright, J., 2022, Greasley Castle, Nottinghamshire: Enhanced Level 2 Historic Building Survey. Triskele Heritage. Unpublished archaeological report.

About the author

James Wright (Triskele Heritage) is an award-winning buildings archaeologist who frequently writes and lectures on the subject of mediaeval building myths. He has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to find meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the mediaeval period.

He welcomes contact through Twitter or email.

The Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog blog is the basis of a forthcoming book – Historic Building Mythbusting – Uncovering Folklore, History and Archaeology which will be released via The History Press on 6 June 2024. More information can be found here:

Historic Building Mythbusting by James Wright

29 March 2023

Whenever I speak or write about castles, I am aware that castle specialists, such as myself, have perhaps not been completely successful at communicating new thinking to the wider public. In the minds of lots of people castles were built primarily as military defensive fortifications. However, this has not been an orthodox view among castle specialists since the late 1980s.

Instead, research by numerous experts, over almost 50 years, has consistently demonstrated the incredible complexity in the function of mediaeval castles. Security was certainly a consideration, but it was probably not the paramount purpose of castles. In concentrating on military matters, at the exclusion of all else, we risk understanding only a tiny fraction of how castles were viewed and used in the mediaeval period. I would like to explore the amazing diversity of castle functions in this blog.

History of Castle Studies

We must trek back in time to understand how the military interpretation of castles became so dominant for so long (and why it still holds sway for so many). The study of castles did not really get underway until the second half of the nineteenth century. Two of the earliest figures to carry out fieldwork were the French restoration architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc (1860) and the English archaeologist Augustus Henry Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers (1883, 429-65). Both men had military backgrounds and saw active service. As a young man Viollet-le-Duc manned the barricades during the July Revolution and, later in life, was a military engineer at the siege of Paris (1870-71). Pitt-Rivers was a Captain and Assistant Quarter Master General at the battle of Alma (1854) and spent 32 years in the British Army, finishing at the rank of Lieutenant General. Perhaps it is no surprise that both men were interested in what they perceived to be mediaeval military structures.

Viollet-le-Duc and Pitt-Rivers were followed by figures such as the engineer, George Thomas Clark, who published Mediaeval Military Architecture in England in 1884; and the academic, Alexander Hamilton Thompson, who released Military Architecture in England During the Middle Ages in 1912. It is notable that the word “military” appeared prominently in both titles. Militarism dominated castle studies for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Even scholars, such as Ella Armitage or Reginald Allen Brown, who accepted that castles also had important residential functions, were still drawn into debates on the tension between living in and defending a castle. Brown’s definition of castles summed up this tension: “the private fortress and residence of a lord” (Brown 1954, 17).

As late as 1973 Philip Warner, a Senior Lecturer at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, stated that: “Castles were… magnificent devices for delaying and dislocating an invading army” (Warner 1973, 8). Such overtly martial interpretations were addressed by David Stocker in an essay, entitled ‘In the Shadow of the General’s Armchair’, which noted that the early commentators on castles came from military backgrounds and tried to make the mediaeval evidence fit their own experience (Stocker 1992, 415-20). This observation can be extended to consider multiple generations of authors in the early- to mid-twentieth century who had grown up in a world fundamentally underpinned, and effected by, the legacy of the British Empire, Boer War, First and Second World Wars. The bureaucracy and militarism of those years may have skewed the interpretation of castles to such an extent that it would have been unrecognisable within the mediaeval world.

By the late 1970s the tide began to turn against the dominance of militarism in castle studies. One of the first to attempt new interpretations was Charles Coulson (1979, 73-101) who suggested that castles were fundamentally architectural expressions of elite living. Whilst acknowledging that the castle did have residential and military roles, Coulson concluded that: “The social purposes of fortresses almost always comprehended and transcended their military functions.” In doing so he opened the floodgates.

Battle for Bodiam

There was a brief period of volatile argument between the militarist old guard and the revisionists but by the mid-1990s the latter were in the ascendancy. Much of the debate centred on the so-called “Battle for Bodiam”. On the one hand were those who thought that Bodiam Castle (East Sussex) was constructed for Sir Edward Dallingridge – a veteran of the Hundred Years War – to protect south-eastern England from attack by the French (Warner 1973, 232-33). Militarists tended to draw attention to the presence of machicolations, gunports, gatehouses, corner towers and the moat; alongside reference to the wording of the 1385 licence to crenellate: “for the defence of the adjacent country, and the resistance to our enemies” (Thompson 1987, 17, 36; Platt 1982, 114-18).

Meanwhile, the revisionists pointed out that the castle was palpably unworkable as a fortification. It is directly overlooked by a nearby hill, the main gatehouse faces inland, the walls are very thin, the crenellations are very low, the gunports are badly sighted, there are some very large ground-floor windows, and the moat is not only shallow but could easily be drained externally (see Liddiard 2005, 7-11 and Johnson 2002, 19-33 for summaries of the various arguments). Instead, they viewed the castle as an impressive moated manor house, surrounded by a landscape of lordship, with an intricate access route dominated by aquatic features intended to create a theatrically ceremonial display of prestige (Everson 1996, 79-84). Bodiam may have looked the part, but it was not a serious defensible position.

An older generation sought to apologise for the military weaknesses of sites such as Bodiam by suggesting that there was a technological evolution of castles, linked to periods of warfare and conquest, starting in the eleventh century which reached a high point at the end of the thirteenth century. From here, they argued, the castle went into decline as the country was largely pacified; but lords still needed the protection offered by strong, self-sufficient, great towers should their own post-feudal mercenaries revolt (Simpson 1969). Given the political upheavals of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries this simplistic linear model was never realistic.

To this Coulson offered a radical solution – that this evolutionary rise and subsequent decline would have been anathema to the actual lived reality of the mediaeval period. Instead, he suggested that the castle was primarily a building which evoked elite status, prestige, and ceremony at all points during the mediaeval era and that this was always the primary imperative for building such structures… but was he correct?

Diversity of Thought

One of the chief joys of working in castle studies in the twenty-first century is the diversity of thought. No longer are specialists confined to relatively narrow arguments within the military versus residential parameters. Coulson helped to enable a whole new spectrum of interpretation. Castles have come to be understood as the most complex structures built within the mediaeval period.

This diversity of function can be typified through analysis of the great hall. Everything in houses of both modest or palatial means pivoted around the hall – sandwiched between the lower status services and the high-status apartments beyond. This layout can be felt in the houses of yeoman farmers or in great castles of all periods including Oakham, Kidwelly, Bodiam, Raglan and Thornbury.

The Great Hall

Castle great halls offered multi-purpose venues. Traditionally, they could be used as a place of dining for the household. However, these were not mere canteens. Everything about such spaces was geared towards the social rituals which helped to order and bind community. The hall had a low end (closest to the cross-passage and services) and a high end (closest to the high-status apartments). The lord would sit on a raised platform, known as a dais, at the high end beneath a tester canopy (a signifier of status). Below the lord the household would sit at trestle tables in order of rank, and, during meals, the lower status members would serve those higher up the pecking order. The architecture of the hall emphasised the innate hierarchy of the mediaeval household (Johnson 2002, 78-80).

The hall was a space festooned with architecture and artwork which proclaimed the status of the lord and his household. Knowledge, patronage and understanding of such motifs was a signifier of lordship. Halls included lavish portable goods and comestibles, elaborate timber roof structures, up-to-the-minute tracery windows, sculpted and moulded stonework, tapestries or wall paintings and fireplaces dripping with iconography. The first-floor hall chimneypiece at Tattershall Castle (Lincolnshire) features armorials of Ralph Cromwell’s ancient family pedigree, purses symbolising the source of his wealth as Lord Treasurer of England, miniature crenellations (the ultimate symbol of lordship), religious scenes of the fight between good and evil, and more marginal images including woodwoses, grotesques and foliage which explored notions of chivalry, spirituality, and sinfulness. Everything here was intended to be an expression of a great and pious Christian lord (Wright 2021, 313-329).

Halls were not just used by the feasting household. They could provide a location for activities including manorial courts, meetings with visitors or retainers, and for dispensing patronage, gift-giving, and charity. At a time when the cohesion of society was predicated on the itinerant management of manors by lords the hall was the centre from which those estates were run. For the uppermost ranks in society the castle hall acted as the beating heart of the complex.

If the great hall was the heart of the castle, it had many arteries spreading out from it. Beyond were the services – including buttery, pantry, kitchen, bakehouse, brewhouse and barn – geared towards feeding the household. Off the upper end were apartments for the higher-ranking members of the household and their guests – which might include a parlour, privy chamber, great chamber, garderobes, bedchambers, and a chapel.

Beyond the Castle Gate

Religion played a fundamental part in mediaeval life and there was no clear distinction between the sacred and the secular worlds (Aston 2003, 72). Consequently, castles had a strong provision of ecclesiastical structures. These might range from personal oratories at the Tower of London, to the household chapel at Haddon Hall, to the Augustinian priory at Porchester Castle (Hampshire) or the collegiate foundation within the walls of Warkworth Castle (Northumberland). Castles were sometimes founded at more or less the same time as monasteries by the same patrons as part of a planned lordly landscape. Examples include Walter Espec at Helmsley Castle and Rievaulx Abbey (North Yorkshire, 1120s) and Nicholas de Cantelupe at Greasley Castle and Beauvale Priory (Nottinghamshire, 1340s).

A close proximity between castle and parish church is near-ubiquitous, with the lord of the manor often a significant patron of the church. Examples include Bolingbroke (Lincolnshire), Northallerton (North Yorkshire) and Egmanton (Nottinghamshire). Sometimes the church was rebuilt at the same time as the foundation of the castle, as happened at Strelley (Nottinghamshire) in the 1350s where it provided a location for the burials of the lordly family.

Religious foundations by castle patrons are a reminder that the reach of a castle projected, far beyond the walls and moats, across designed landscapes of lordship (Creighton 2002, 110-132). The immediate locale of a castle could include structures essential to providing for the household. At Tattershall this included a substantial, adjacent, extra-mural enclosure which featured a collegiate foundation, bedehouses, walled gardens, a rabbit warren, fishponds and a brick-built mill. Beyond this the power of Ralph Cromwell was felt through his reorganisation of the adjoining village around a large marketplace with a prominent cross at its heart (Wright 2022, 153-163).

Such markets point towards castles acting as economic centres which could propagate regional trade (Creighton 2002, 163-66). Markets directly outside the gates of castles can be found at Lincoln, Ludlow, and Richmond. Other important features of urban life, such as grammar schools, and almshouses, were sometimes founded at the same time as castles – as they were at Tattershall by Ralph Cromwell (Wright 2022, 165-66, 167-68).  

Further afield, castles acted as the centres of great agricultural estates. The open fields which surrounded castles and their settlements would provide a source of food and income for the lord, household, and tenant farmers (Creighton 2002, 89-109). The families of those farmers might also find gainful employment within the walls of high-status dwellings too. In the fourteenth century there are records of local women acting as both cleaners and singers at the royal palace at Kings Clipstone, Nottinghamshire (Wright 2016, 17, 110).

Beyond the fields could be found enclosed deer parks – intended to protect, feed and nurture beasts of the chase. Again, the infrastructure of parks required an investment in the local labour force to keep them managed, repaired and free of poachers (Creighton 2009, 100-66). Within the hinterlands of castles further structures were built including the hunting lodge at Woodhall Spa (Lincolnshire) and the banqueting house or pleasance at Kenilworth (Warwickshire). The latter was separated from the castle by a manmade lake and was probably only accessible via boat – making it an exceptionally elite space for the most high-status guests or household members (Johnson 2002, 139). Whole landscapes were designed and managed to support and project the power of the castle lords.

Women and Castles

The lordly household was primarily male, but it is possible to sense women in castles and the study of feminine patronage, space and access has been approached with greater frequency in recent years. Abigail Wheatley (2004, 78-111) has raised the connections between femininity and spiritual discourse in castle-themed poetry such as the Château d’Amour. Gillian Scott (Eadie 2015, 174-88), the current chair of the Castle Studies Group, has delved into the use of Irish tower houses within the context of family life. Karen Dempsey (2020, 85-98) has looked at the historiography and place of women as castle specialists as a preface to her discussion on the meanings and interpretation of gender within the gardens of Irish castles.

The diversity of voices within modern castle studies can, and must, be extended. It has been figures such as Ella Armitage, Roberta Gilchrist and Pamela Marshall who have helped to make significant shifts in the discipline. At various times such scholars have asked important questions which have broadened the debate away from military matters to include greater emphasis on residential aspects (Armitage 1912), spaces devoted to female members of the household and the gendered language which was used to discuss castles (Gilchrist 1999, 109-145), or the use of the great tower as a ceremonial space (Marshall 2002, 110-125).

One of the most important reassessments of any castle has come, in recent years, from Rachel Swallow’s work at Caernarfon. She has queried the orthodox view, initially proposed by Arnold Taylor (1963, 369-71), that the design of the castle walls and towers were uniquely the vision of Edward I – who wished to present himself as a new conquering emperor in the Roman mould. Instead, Swallow has proposed the significant involvement of Eleanor of Castile through a curious interplay between history, myth, and theatrical ceremony at the Queen’s Gate to the castle (Swallow 2019, 153-195). Some of the most significant statements about castles ever to have been made are those by authors – including Gilchrist, Wheatley, and Swallow – that have queried who the varied audiences for castles were and what those people thought about castles in the contemporary moment.

Breadth of the Subject

The sheer variety of the built environment of castles must be underlined. Broadly speaking, castles were constructed across Europe from the ninth through to the seventeenth century, with an especial focus on the eleventh to early sixteenth century in England. Although there are certain similarities between some sites or periods of construction, no two castles are the same. There is tremendous diversity in architecture across time, space, and patronage.

Anglo-Norman motte and bailey castles of the eleventh century look radically different to the brick courtyard castles of the late fifteenth century. An early sixteenth century Irish tower house bears little resemblance to contemporary late mediaeval English buildings. Even within a specific time period, such as the late eleventh century, the earth and timber ringworks of regional lords bore little physical relationship to William I’s great donjons at Norwich, Colchester or London. Yet all were intended to project the power of their lords.

The pages of the Castle Studies Group Journal reflects this cultural diversity and includes articles on structures such as motte and baileys, moated manor houses, courtyard houses, palaces and great stone castles. All such works were the architectural expression of lordship – it is just that the means of the lords and the physical form of their buildings altered according to available wealth, regional styles, and chronological developments.

Despite all this, we can still embrace the thoughts of latter-day militarists. Castles often had defensive elements and, in some rare cases, those features were challenged during actual armed conflict (Liddiard 2005, 71-78). Some of the best work on sieges in recent years has come from Peter Purton (2010) and Dan Spencer (2018) who offer well-rounded perspectives in the light of modern scholarship. Bodiam has once again been re-considered as a fortified site by Jonathan Foyle (2017, 10-13). Security was certainly a feature of castles. However, the wider discussion is no longer just about defences. Voices who concentrate their study on fortifications are welcome additions to the literature, but a balance has been achieved.

Definitions

Many scholars, such as Brown and Coulson, have attempted to define the castle. More recently, John Goodall (2011, 8) has offered a re-worked version of Brown’s definition: “A castle is the residence of a lord made imposing through the architectural trappings of fortification.” I especially like the use of the word “trappings” here as it acknowledges that the fortifications only had to look the part rather than necessarily be fully functional.

Personally, I would like to see a greater degree of diversity and complexity to be considered in the definition of castles. To be honest, the functions of castles are rather nebulous despite their earthworks, carpentry and masonry being oh-so-very tangible. Any definition will be open to criticism, revision, or outright rejection. However, I offer up the following option:

Mediaeval castles were highly complex architectural expressions of elite rank, power, and prestige. Castles were built in a wide variety of regional traditions for diverse patrons in chronologically differing styles. The environment of castles involved the construction and management of buildings and landscapes which may incorporate functional or symbolic military features, but this was not their primary purpose. Instead, the construction of castles was concerned with a wide range of hierarchical, ceremonial, theatrical, religious, residential, administrative, economic, agricultural, social, political, and gendered functions and perspectives which enabled a display of elite status.

Unwieldy, I know… but nuanced.

Conclusions

It must be said, though, that heavy-handed militarism lingers. Perhaps this can be excused at sites, such as Beeston (Cheshire) or Dunstanburgh (Northumberland) where it is only the defences which survive to a meaningful extent. It is difficult to tell other stories in these cases. Yet, castles with substantial surviving architecture, such as Warwick (now owned by a financial investment firm and leased to Merlin Entertainments), have a plethora of opportunities to tell a wide range of stories. However, Warwick is presented as a mediaeval theme park. Events are dominated by knights and jousting. The gift shops are full of plastic swords, helmets, and shields. The nineteenth century militaristic view of castles still reigns… which makes Warwick my least favourite castle to visit. Only a tiny fraction of the story is being told.

Part of the problem stems from pop culture representations of castles. Blockbuster films set in the mediaeval period – such as Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Robin Hood (2010) and Ironclad (2011) – rely on depictions of sieges for major set-piece action scenes. This is despite the relative rarity of sieges of castles in mediaeval warfare (Liddiard 2005, 71-78). Unfortunately, the military interpretation has been continuously reinforced by TV historians, including Dan Jones, who make programmes where the tropes presented reach little further than the research of the 1980s.

Much of the militaristic view is learned early in life from both family and school. It is impossible to stand on a castle spiral staircase and not hear a small child listening to an elderly relative knowledgably repeating the myth that they all turn clockwise to advantage right-handed defenders (a subject covered in a former Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog). Meanwhile, the coverage of castles in the National Curriculum for schools is largely stuck in the 1950s. Militarism prevails.  

Despite this, castle specialists have found allies. The National Trust and Usborne Books have brought out fabulously accurate, yet hugely entertaining, books on castles for children (Colby 2021; Cox 2015). Usborne can even boast Abigail Wheatley on their roster of authors. English Heritage are generally excellent in their diverse multi-level presentation of castles through online platforms, social media, audio tours, interpretation panels and guidebooks written by genuine experts in the field such as John Kenyon, Richard K. Morris, and Marc Girouard. Having experts such as Will Wyeth on the strength at English Heritage has no doubt had a positive effect too.

There are different methods of telling the castle story, it just requires castle specialists to be able to find broader platforms to accurately communicate the last 50 years of research in innovative and accurate ways.

References

Armitage, E., 1912, The Early Norman Castles of the British Isles. John Murray. London.

Aston, M., 2003, ‘The Use of Images’ in Marks, R. & Williamson, P. (ed.’s), Gothic: Art for England, 1400-1547. V&A Publications. London. pp68-75.

Brown, R. A., 1954, English Medieval Castles. Batsford. London.

Colby, R., 2021, The Castle the King Built. Nosy Crow / National Trust. London.

Cox, P. R., 2015, What Were Castles For? Usborne. London.

Creighton, O., 2009, Designs Upon the Land – Elite Landscapes of the Middle Ages. Boydell. Woodbridge.

Creighton, O., 2002, Castles and Landscapes. Equinox. Sheffield.

Coulson, C., 1979, ‘Structural Symbolism in Medieval Castle Architecture’ in Journal of the British Archaeological Association Vol. 132. British Archaeological Association. pp73-90.

Clark, G. T., 1884, Medieval Military Architecture in England Vol. 1 & 2. Wyman & Sons. London.

Dempsey, K., 2020, ‘Planting New Ideas: A Feminist Gaze on Medieval Castles’ in Château Gaillard – Etudes de castellologie médiévale Volume 29. Publications du CRAHAM. pp85-92.

Eadie, G., 2015, “Know you that serving folk be of three kinds’ Irish towers and the familia’, in Oram, R. (ed), ‘A house such as thieves might knock at’ – Proceedings of the 2010 Stirling and 2011 Dundee Conferences. Shaun Tyas. Donington. pp174-188.

Everson, P., 1996, ‘Bodiam Castle, East Sussex: castle and its designed landscape’ in Chateau Gaillard – Etudes de castellologie médiévale Volume 17. Publications du CRAHAM. pp79-84.

Foyle, J., 2017, Bodiam Castle. National Trust. London.

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About the author

James Wright (Triskele Heritage) is an award-winning buildings archaeologist who frequently writes and lectures on the subject of mediaeval building myths. He has two decades professional experience of ferreting around in people’s cellars, hunting through their attics and digging up their gardens. He hopes to find meaningful truths about how ordinary and extraordinary folk lived their lives in the mediaeval period.

He welcomes contact through Twitter or email.

The Mediaeval Mythbusting Blog blog is the basis of a forthcoming book – Historic Building Mythbusting – Uncovering Folklore, History and Archaeology which will be released via The History Press on 6 June 2024. More information can be found here:

Historic Building Mythbusting by James Wright