More information : TR 1454 5743: Canterbury Castle [NR]. (1)
The remains of Canterbury Castle consist of the ruins of a square Norman keep standing two storeys above ground level. Scheduled. [See plan GP/F/54/82/8 (4)]. (2-4)
The remains of the Castle, as described, are in good condition. On the east side the site of the unique Edwardian gatehouse with its symmetrical drum towers(a) is marked by a stone wall in the turf. GP/AO/65/61/1. (5)
Canterbury Castle, Castle Street. The remains of a square Norman keep. 2 storeys above ground level (it was reduced in height in 1817) built in bands of flint and Caen stone blocks. There were originally 4 arched windows to each side. The interior has 2 cross walls and the remains of spiral staircases in the east and south-west wall. Remains of fireplaces of rubble set in a herringbone pattern. The keep measures 87 by 75 feet externally and the walls are 9 feet thick. Scheduled as an ancient monument.(6)
Canterbury Castle stood in the south of the town just within the
city wall, which formed the south boundary of its inner bailey. The other defences consisted of a rectangular curtain wall with angle turrets and a ditch, entered through two gates: one from the city to the north and from the south through the Roman Worthgate. The bailey walls and the gates were swept away in 1792 and the
medieval topography was gradually destroyed. Only the keep and a small portion of the bailey wall running along the north side of
Rheims Way now survive, although the ditch and wall were observed at the south end of Castle Street by J Pilbrow 1868.
A castle at Canterbury mentioned in Domesday may be this castle or the motte and bailey at Dane John (TR 15 NW 264). The keep, of standard Norman pattern, originally had a first floor entrance via a forebuilding. On its east side a later, probably 13th to 14th century forebuilding, with two round towers, leading to a ground floor entrance was excavated by G Webster in 1939. (5a above)
In 1971 excavations by the Canterbury Archaeological Society on
the west side of the keep located the foundations of a rectangular gatehouse central to the keep wall. In 1976 the Castle ditch was
located during excavations at Rosemary Lane car park by the CAT. The approximate alignment of the bailey defences can be seen here as a break in slope of the ground surface behind oast houses south of Gas Lane. In 1977-8 a survey of upstanding remains of the keep was carried out by CAT. The castle almost certainly dates from the post-Conquest period. Indirect evidence for the date of the keep suggests circa 1085-1125. It was used as a prison from circa 1293 but by 1335 the castle was largely ruinous (see illustration card for plans). (7-21)
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