More information : (SO 334 910) Motte & Bailey (NR) (1)
Lydham Castle, a 19 ft high conical motte with an oval bailey. An outer bailey is defined by existing water courses and one remaining section of bailey ditch on the north. Plan. (2)
A motte situated within a sub-ovate bailey of bank and inner ditch. The motte has no ditch and rises some 3.4m above the general level of the bailey floor. The flat top is approximately rectangular, 16.0m long E-W and 9.0m wide. On the west side the motte is 6.7m high above the bailey ditch beyond which there is an outer bank 2.2m above the ditch. East of the motte the bailey is defined by a scarp slope 1.9m high. That the bank outside the ditch was formerly continuous with this scarp is shown at the bank's southern end where it turns sharply to the east on the alignment of the scarp slope.
The former watercourse, now dry, on the north, west and south sides probably represents the line of the bailey ditch,although it is probably deeper than the original ditch and on the north side it does not appear to be on the same alignment. There is at present no evidence for the existence of an outer bailey.
Published survey (25") revised. (3)
SO 3344 9103. Motte and bailey castle 100m west of Holy Trinity Church. Scheduled (RSM). (4)
The Medieval motte and bailey of Lydham Castle was seen as earthworks and mapped from good quality air photographs during the Marches Uplands Mapping Project. No further information was added, although blocks of ridge and furrow which are likely to be contemporary with the castle were seen abutting the earthworks on the north-west side. (5-6)
Listed by Cathcart King. (7) |