Eaton Socon Castle Hills

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as; The Hillings

In the civil parish of St Neots.
In the historic county of Bedfordshire (Modern Authority of Cambridgeshire, 1974 county of Cambridgeshire).

Ringwork and bailey with partly underlying Saxon cemetery and settlement identified from excavations. A large horse-shoe ditch enclosing on the river side two sub-rectangular wards. Excavated 1949/50. In the northern ward were found at least 40 Saxon burials (associated with St Neots pottery) and there had probably been there a settlement and a Church (stone and mortar debris was found overlying the burials) defended by the horseshoe ditch which appears earlier than the other earthworks. (Harvey list Eaton Socon twice once in Bedfordshire and once in Cambridgeshire.)

This site has been described as a;
Timber Castle.
The confidence that this site is a medieval fortification or palace is Certain.
Earthworks remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

The Ordnance Survey Map Grid Reference is TL1735890

Sources of information, references and further reading

PastScape number; 362787

Books

Salter, Mike, 2001, The Castles of East Anglia (Malvern) p18
Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge) p4 [slight]
Higham, R. and Barker, P., 1992, Timber Castles (Batsford) p355
Taylor, Alison, 1986, Castles of Cambridgeshire (Cambridge)
King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol1 p5
Fry, P.S., 1980, Castles of the British Isles (David and Charles) p226
Renn, D.F., 1973 (2edn), Norman Castles of Britain (John Baker)
Page, Wm (ed), 1912, 'Parishes: Eaton Socon', VCH Bedford Vol3 p189-202 [mainly manorial history http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.asp?compid=42414]
Harvey, Alfred, 1911, Castles and Walled Towns of England (Methuen and Co)
Allcroft, A. Hadrian, 1908, Earthwork of England (London) p436
Doubleday, H.Arthur and Page, Wm (eds), 1904, VCH Bedford Vol1 p297-300
Mackenzie, J.D., 1897, Castles of England Vol1 p139
Clark, G.T., 1884, Medieval Military Architecture in England (Wyman and Sons) Vol2 p36-8

Journal Articles

Baker, D., 1982, 'Mottes, Moats and ringworks in Bedfordshire: Beauchamp Wadmore revisited' Château Gaillard Vol9-10 p35-54
Addyman, P.V., 1965, 'Late Saxon settlements in the St Neots area I: The Saxon settlement and Norman castle at Eaton Socon' Proceedings of the Cambridgeshire Antiquarian Society Vol58 p38-73
Dyer, 1962-3, Bedfordshire Magazine Vol8 p347 [slight]
Brown, R, Allen, 1959, 'A List of Castles, 1154–1216' English Historical Review Vol74 [Reprinted in Brown, R. Allen, 1989, Castles, conquest and charters: collected papers (Woodbridge: Boydell Press) p249-280]
Lethbridge, T.C. and Tebbutt, C.T., 1951, 'Excavations on the castle site known as "The Hillings" at Eaton Socon, Bedfordshire' Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society Vol45 p48-61
Clark, 1874, The Builder Vol32 p431-2 [reprinted in MMA]

Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)

William Camden, 1607, Britannia [http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/cambrit/buckseng.html#beds5]
Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p23
Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1910, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (Bell and Sons; London) Vol4 p22

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