If you have any comments or new information about this record, please email us.

Summary

Motte and bailey surrounded by a ditch. The motte is 30m in diameter and 2m high, with internal later depression and is completely surrounded by a ditch 6m wide and 1m deep, with a low bank 0.6m high beyond. The motte is flanked to the N by two smaller mounds. A horse-shoe shaped ditch joins onto the motte ditch on the north-west and north-east corners.

Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument 1012171: MOTTE AND BAILEY CASTLE ON EDBURTON HILL

Other References/Statuses

• Environmentally Sensitive Area
• National Monuments Record Reference: TQ21SW1/399342
• National Park (South Downs)
• Site of Special Scientific Interest (Biological)

Monument Types

• MOTTE AND BAILEY (Saxon - 410 AD to 1065 AD)

Full description

The monument includes the earthworks and interior area of a motte and bailey castle believed to date from the immediate post-Conquest period, soon after October 1066.
On the south side of the monument is a circular mound - the motte - 30m in diameter and 2m above the general ground level at its crest. The centre of the motte is scarred by a depression resulting from mistaken barrow digging in the 19th century, but much of the motte survives intact. It is completely surrounded by a ditch some 6m wide and still nearly 1m deep, and beyond the ditch around the southern half is a low bank 0.6m high which has been truncated slightly by ploughing on the southern extremity. The motte is flanked to the N by two smaller mounds.

A horse-shoe shaped ditch joins onto the motte ditch on the north-west and north-east corners. This ditch, again some 6m wide but deeper than the motte ditch (up to 1.5 to 1.8m deep) defines the bailey area. On the inner edge is a strong earthen bank up to 1.2m above the interior level and therefore up to 3m above the bottom of the ditch. This bank, in places 14m across, is breached to both east and west, and the ditch is correspondingly causewayed to allow entry into the bailey. On the outer edge is a second bank, this one slighter and diminishing to nothing around the northern side where additional defence is made unnecessary by the steep slope of the scarp slope. The low bank which extends southwards from the eastern edge of the monument is a later land division and is not included in the scheduling. Archaeological Comments - Site:121304*0 This castle was constructed on the border between two rapes - Bramber and Lewes. Rapes were introduced by the Saxons and modified by the Normans as a means of dividing Sussex up administratively. Bramber rape was a new one at the time of the Normans. Two of his earls held the lordships of the rapes here. This castle has large views both to north and south. It is likely to have been important at least in the early post-Conquest years as a display of power and the 'new order' of the Normans. Such castles acted as garrison forts during offensive military operations, as strongholds, and in may cases, as aristocratic residences and the centre of local or royal administration. Sussex was relatively easily quelled and therefore its use is more likely to have been administrative and residential than as a fort or stronghold. Nevertheless the two earls were on opposite sides when the barons tried to overthrow the kingdom and so this castle may have had some defence role then.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• ENA2060 - Archaeological and Land use history survey Fulking Escarpment

Related records: none recorded

Search results generated by the HBSMR Gateway from exeGesIS SDM Ltd.