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Summary

Part of SM 19010/01 and all of SM 19010/02, a motte and bailey castle truncated by the road.

Associated Legal Designations or Protected Status

• Scheduled Monument 1007924: MOTTE AND BAILEY CASTLES, FISHPONDS, DESERTED MEDIEVAL VILLAGE AND MANOR SITE NE OF ST MARY'S CHURCH
• Registered Park or Garden (II) 1000525: Hamstead Marshall Park

Other Statuses and Cross-References

• Berkshire SMR No. (pre 2000): 01040.02.000
  
• National Monuments Record No.: PRN 1601-1602
  Not sure which motte was 1601 or 1602
• Old Scheduled Ancient Monument (Berkshire): BK 11
  

Monument Type(s):

• MANOR HOUSE? (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)
• MOTTE AND BAILEY (Medieval - 1066 AD to 1539 AD)

Full Description

Two motte and bailey castles lie in close proximity at Hamstead Marshall, their centres only 115m apart, to the northeast of the church and the remains of the former village. They are part of a larger scheduled monument. 'The second and larger motte lies to the north-west (of the first). It is steep-sided and circular in plan and has a diameter of 62m rising to a flat summit at a height of 6.8m. Around the southern half of the mound a substantial ditch survives, averaging 10m wide and 2.7m deep. This is crossed at its most southerly point by a causewayed ramp which appears to be of a later date than the ditch or motte. To the north are the probable remains of a small bailey projecting towards the River Kennet. Today its shape and form and obscured by the modern road which cuts it off from the motte. A second larger and better preserved bailey can be traced around the west side of the motte, again cut by the modern road but surviving as a bank enclosing a roughly rectangular area. Platforms and hollows within the bailey identify the site of former buildings, possibly including the manor house.' <1>

This motte and the two others nearby were categorised in Victorian times as tumuli <02>, based on earlier sources; this is perhaps surprising because Aubrey in the 17th century noted "by Hamstead Marshall in Berkshire (a seat of the Earl of Craven) is a hill like Silbury Hill, on which Captain W Winde designs to make a screw-walk, as at the keep of the Castle at Marlborough", and "Captain Wynd farther tells me that there is a hill called Castle Hill near/within a mile of Hamstead Marshall, greater than that before mentioned (Marlborough), and there is also another mount near, but not so great" <03>. In 1930 their true character was reestablished by Myres and Williams <04> and subsequently Grinsell <05>.

Following survey work by RCHME, a discussion of the reason for the presence of three castles close to each other suggested three explanations <06>. Firstly that they were the product of separate ownership; but this can hardly apply when two mottes are only a hundred metres apart (MWB1542 and MWB1543). Secondly that one was a siegework; again the proximity and structure of the two westerly mottes makes this unlikely here. However, the unfinished easternmost castle (MWB1549) occupies a strong natural site away from the manor, and faces the other two: it could well be an incomplete siegework. The third possibility, that the location of the castles moved over time, is plausible for the westernmost motte (MWB1543) which is larger and more heavily defended than its close neighbour, and could have superseded it.

The date for the construction of these monuments is hard to ascertain from documentary sources. Myres found a gap between 1233 and 1241 when some destruction or rebuilding could have occurred. However, earthwork castles would have been outmoded by the 13th century, most being built in the hundred years after the Norman Conquest, with a peak during the reign of Stephen (1135-54).

A more recent theory <07> about this motte and the other two at Hamstead Marshall derives from a study of the lack of evidence tying Newbury Castle to a supposed location by the wharf in that town <08>. It has been suggested that in fact the castle "at Newbury", besieged during 1152-3 and described in an epic poem on the life of William the Marshall <09> could be the smaller of the two mottes close to the church (MWB1542). The site might have been referred to in this way because Newbury was larger and better known than the village of Hamstead Marshall.

Between September 2015 and April 2016 a team of researchers from the University of Reading carried out a programme of archaeological fieldwork on the site of Castle 3. This fieldwork included the drilling of two boreholes into the mound, an analytical earthwork survey, and a Electrical Resistivity Tomography Geophysical Survey. This work indicated that Castle 3 was constructed from local geological material and most likely dates to the mid-12th to mid-13th centuries. The earthwork evidence suggests that Castle 3 was constructed utilising the natural topography, with the mound given the appearance of greater size by cleverly sculpting the natural spur on which it sat. The local environment immediately before Castle 3 was built was wet and marshy, and covered by scrubby Birch and Hazel woodland. During the drilling of the borehole in the centre of Castle 3 (BH1), a large air-filled void was discovered beneath the mound. This feature is most likely to be a natural dissolution feature in the underlying Chalk bedrock <12>. The geophysical survey appears to correlate well with the geotechnical investigation, and both ERT traverses show large areas of high resistivity which may represent the possible void <13>.

Sources and further reading

Related Monuments

Associated Excavations and Fieldwork

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