More information : [SP 6254 6755] Castle [GT] (Site of) (1)
Ring motte and bailey at Long Buckby, south side of the Vicarage garden. The motte, has a ditch about forty feet broad enclosing a bank at least twenty feet high in its present condition, which in turn encloses a hollow oval area about 80 by 50 ft. broad. The central area is surrounded by a bank up to ten feet high, and its floor appears to be about the same height above the surrounding ground. On its west side is a gap in the bank, almost certainly original, which was presumably an entry connected by a drawbridge to the west bailey.
A trial excavation was undertaken by the Ministry of Works in February 1955. [See plan and section: AO:60:389:1 & 2] The tentative conclusions were that 'a shallow ditch or an enclosure of uncertain shape, possibly of pre-Conquest or early post-Conquest date, was superseded first by a wall and subsequently by a bank with a deep ditch on the outside. Behind this wall stood a small stone building. The main motte was probably built at this time. The objects associated with this building suggest that it was erected in the middle decades of the twelfth century. ....Some years later a curtain wall was constructed around the bailey'. (2)
Ring motte in a good state of preservation but the bailey to the west is being destroyed by house building. No certain evidence for a bailey to the east can now be recognized although two faint scarps are visible within what is presumed to have been the enclosed area. It should be noted, however, that what is indicated in the small inset in Thompson's plan as part of the south ditch, is in fact an old road.
Published survey (25") revised. (3)
Apart from infilling of the eastern ditch the ring work is in good condition. Only slight traces of the two baileys remain; the western has been partly destroyed by modern building and the remains of the eastern bailey ditch have been recently filled and levelled.
An old road on the south side has utilised the bailey ditch.
Published 25" survey revised. (4)
RCHM Inventory suggests that the castle, SP625675 dated provisionally by excavation to the mid 12th century may have been constructed by the de Quincy family who held the manor until 1264. Bridges noted that old foundation walls 8 or 10 feet thick have been found at the castle. (5)
Listed as a Ringwork by Cathcart King. (6) |