More information : SP 581 612: Castle (NR) (Site of). (1)
In an adjoining wood to Burnt Walls (SP 56 SE 2) close to the turnpike road are other military works called John of Gaunt's Castle (2).
There is evidence that he owned property in the parish possibly in Daventry Wood (3) which was grubbed up in 1816 revealing a double ditch (moat) enclosing foundations of a rectangular building 40 yards long (4).
In subsequent brick-clay diggings the whole of the building was traced: it was square and occupied circa 1/3 of an acre. The outer walls were 4-5 feet thick and the three cross walls 2-3 feet thick. A drawbridge entrance was on the south east side. On the south west was a round tower 26 feet in diameter and detached 2 feet from the main building and to the east a corresponding one some 40 yards distant. A boundary wall was uncovered near the highway and Roman pottery has been found here (3). Also found circa 1883 a 14th/15th century stone mortar or creeing trough (5). (1-5)
Resurveyed at 1:2500. (6)
Only the south arm of the moat remains and is used as a dump for old cars. See annotated 25" survey. The quarried area to the north has been for the most part filled and levelled. (7)
SP 583 613: The site of John of Gaunt's Castle is now completely obliterated by dumps of road material. (8)
A sub-rectangular earthwork appended to the south of John of Gaunt's Castle was surveyed by Leicester University (c.1972). (9)
(SP 5807 6117) John of Gaunt's Castle (NR) (site of) (NAT). (10)
MOATED SITE (SP 581612) known as John of Gaunt's Castle, lay in the SE corner of the parish within the deer park on almost flat ground at the base of a steep slope, on Upper Lias Clay at 15m above OD. It was probably a medieval moated hunting-lodge, but little is known of its history.
There are various records of Roman bricks and tiles having been found on the site; this may be a misidentification of medieval materials. In 1816 the wood which then covered the area was removed and a `double ditch was disclosed within which, just below the surface, was the foundation wall, varying from 4 ft to 5 ft in thickness, of a rectangular building 40 yards long and intersected with three cross walls'. The north part of the site, including all but the south side of the moat, was worked for clay for a brickyard from at least 1857 until 1904 and during this time massive foundation walls were exposed and then destroyed. A building, apparently the one described by Baker, is recorded and described as `square' and occupying an area of about one third of an acre with `three cross walls'. On the south-west side the foundations of a detached round tower 8m in diameter were discovered and traces of another, similar one were noted on the East side. Foundations of `an entrance which had evidently been approached by a drawbridge' were found there apparently on the south-east of the building. Recently the whole site has been built over except for the south side of the moat which remains as a long ditch 1.2m deep. In the field to the south is a small roughly D-shaped enclosure, bounded by a low scarp 0.5m high, with traces of an outer ditch on its west side; this enclosure has been completely overploughed in ridge-and-furrow. There are slight indications that there was once a further enclosure to the south again. A medieval glazed roof tile, said to be from the site, survives (DS), but a stone mortar of the 14th or 15th-century date and found in about 1853 on the site is lost. (11)
Mutilated remains of the south arm of a moat, perhaps associated with John O'Gaunt's Castle, a medieval hunting lodge which lay to the north. In the field to the south are the remains of an undated enclosure overlain by ridge and furrow.
Resurveyed at 1:1250. Plans and a detailed descriptive text are deposited in the NMR archive. (12) |