| Summary : The earthwork and cropmark remains of a medieval ringwork and bailey castle together with a complex of other buried ditches and enclosures on a low gravel island to the west of Biggleswade. The site was initially identified from the air in 1954. Some rescue excavation was undertaken in 1962 in advance of the A1 Biggleswade by-pass. The site appears to date from the century or so after the Norman Conquest, possibly associated with the civil war between Stephen and Matilda. Finds included pottery and evidence for wattle & daub and timber structures. Ordnance Survey field investigation in 1968 suggested that only the central mound and faint traces of the encircling ditch were still visible on the ground. The remainder had been levelled by the plough. The site is scheduled.
The cropmark remains of this site have been and mapped from aerial photographs and lidar as part of the Historic England Archaeological survey at Biggleswade Common and Environs.
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| More information : A previously unknown ringwork and bailey on the W. bank of the R. Ivel was observed from the air at TL 184445 as a cropmark by St. Joseph in 1954. (See Key to A/P on illustn.card) (2).
The remains suggest a ringwork and bailey rather than a motte, and the position is good for a castle site. The site was endangered by the construction of the A.1. Biggleswade by-pass, and a brief rescue excavation was undertaken by the M.O.W. in 1962. This consisted of one trench cut obliquely across the line of the ringwork ditches and on the edge of the ringwork platform. a few sherds of cooking-pots were found of similar fabric to Early Medieval wares recently defined by Hurst (3) and probably E. 12th c. The trial excavation certainly dates from the century following the Norman Conquest, and that it contained wattle and daub-clad timber structures associated with ditch defences. Scheduled. (1-3)
Only the central mound with faint traces of its encircling ditch
survive - all the other features are ploughed out.
Surveyed at 1/2500. (4)
A rapid examination of air photography (5a) shows the ringwork and bailey, including a possible sub-dividing ditch in the bailey, and the unusual nature of the ditch cropmarks, which appear divided into small blocks.(5)
The cropmark remains of the medieval ringwork and bailey, thought to be associated with the 12th century civil war between Stephen and Matilda, has been mapped from aerial photographs (7-8) and lidar as part of the Historic England Archaeological survey at Biggleswade Common and Environs. The levelled remains appear as a large circular broad, double-ditched enclosure over 65m in diameter within an oval outer enclosure 140m (N-S) x 100m (E-W). The inner ringwork is centred at TL1842 4447 and is located off-centre within the bailey, touching the eastern side of the outer enclosure which bulges around the inner enclosure. Lidar data suggests there is still some height to the inner enclosure. On the eastern side of the bailey ditch there are two partial arcs of ditch visible as cropmarks which may be the remains of earlier enclosures, possibly hut circles or round barrows (TL 1`846 4447 and TL 1845 4444).
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