Dolphinholme Castle Hill

In the civil parish of Ellel.
In the historic county of Lancashire (Modern Authority of Lancashire, 1974 county of Lancashire).

Medieval motte surviving as an earthwork. Partly obliterated by quarrying. It stands only some 1.5m high and up to 20m wide on a small plateau outside the village and strategically above the northwest banks of the River Wyre. No bailey has been identified here, but quarrying has obscured the western side of the monument. Remnants of the foundations of a structure survive on the top of the mound suggesting (assuming that it is contemporaneous and not the base of e.g. a quarryman’s hut) that the motte cannot have been much higher in the past and thus was much smaller than the Lune Valley sites. This assumes, however, that the motte was not constructed around a stone tower as at Farnham and subsequently quarried away or that the mound was not cut away for the later construction of a tower that again has been quarried away

This site has been described as a;
Timber Castle.
The confidence that this site is a medieval fortification or palace is Possible.
Cropmarks/slight earthworks remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

The Ordnance Survey Map Grid Reference is SD52045361

Modern Map from Good for landscape form and features	Modern Map from Good for general location
Air Photo from	1st edition OS Map from

Sources of information, references and further reading

PastScape number; 887103

County Sites and Monuments Record number; 11191

• Web site links
  • http://www.lancashire.gov.uk/environment/heritage/castle/chill2.asp
• Journal Articles
  • Higham, Mary, 1991, 'The Mottes of North Lancashire, Lonsdale and South Cumbria' Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society Vol91 p79-90
• Other sources and unpublished works (Theses, in-house reports and other such)
  • PeteIles, R., 2003, (unpublished dissertation)