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Summary

A 12th century castle at Barton is mentioned in documentary sources. Its location is uncertain.

Monument Types

• CASTLE (MED:C12, Medieval - 1100 AD to 1199 AD)

Protected Status - None

Associated Finds - None

Associated Events

• Desk-Based Assessment, Seaforth, 91 Barrow Road, Barton, 2007
• Desk-based assessment, 1,3 & 5 Green Lane, Barton upon Humber, North Lincolnshire, 2008

Full description

References in a charter by Earl Syman (dated to 1156-61) and in another by Robert de Gaunt (dated to 1186-90) refer to a castle built at Barton by Earl Gilbert (d. 1156). Brown suggests site at TA 0320 2180, CW Phillips at TA 0322 2179, and Ordnance Survey at TA 0310 2165. No finds or surviving traces to substantiate any of these sites. (Brown 1906, 30, 98-99, fig. 4; 1908, 5; CWP/OSSI). [1]

'Barton Castle, recorded as having been built in the 1140s by the lord of Barton, Gilbert de Gant, is an example of those castles hastily constructed in the anarchy of Stephen's reign to protect estates and exert pressure on neighbours. In this case the neighbour was the powerful Count of Aumale, with whom de Gant was on unfriendly terms in the 1140s, and it is likely that his castle was a response to Aumale's at Barrow Haven, which was probably re-fortified at this time. The castle at Barton was short-lived (de Gant was on the losing side in the civil war, and the castle would have been deliberately destroyed). Its location has always been disputed, and a site on the southern hillside overlooking the town has usually been favoured, but the discovery, during excavations at St Peter's church in 1981, of a massive and short-lived twelfth century ditch between the church and Tyrwhitt Hall, suggests that the castle lay here, on a low spur at the marshland edge, overlooking a former tidal creek, and that it probably had a low motte, like Barrow's, within a large oval bailey which re-used the earthworks of an earlier Saxon defended enclosure. A short distance to the east was a section of the town ditch, the Castle Dikes, which were also probably created by de Gant at this time. For a while the two castles at Barrow and Barton would have faced each other across the marshes, vying for control of the important Humber crossings Although Barton castle was later removed, the position of the oval defended 'bailey', marked by a ring of roads following the former ditch, persisted as a prominent feature of the local topography until the nineteenth century, and still survives in part on the north and west sides.' [2]

This site was listed in the gazetteer section of a desk-based assessment, 2008. [3, 4]

<1> Loughlin, N and Miller, KR, 1979, A Survey of Archaeological Sites in Humberside, 187 (BOOK). SLS523.

<2> Ellis, S, Fenwick, H, Lillie, M, Van De Noort, R (Eds), 2001, Wetland Heritage of the Lincolnshire Marsh, 70-71 (REPORT - INTERIM, RESEARCH, SPECIALIST, ETC). SLS1990.

<3> Berger, M., 2008, Desk Based Assessment for 1, 3 & 5 Green Lane, Barton Upon Humber, North Lincolnshire, Appendix 1 (DESK BASED ASSESSMENT REPORT). SLS3710.

<4> Berger, M., Desk Based Assessment for 1, 3 & 5 Green Lane, Barton Upon Humber, North Lincolnshire, Appendix 1 (COMPUTER DISK/TAPE). SLS3711.

Sources and further reading

Related records

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