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Wood Walton Castle Hill
Also known as, or recorded in historical
documents as; Woodwalton
In the civil parish of Wood Walton.
In the historic county of Huntingdonshire (Modern Authority of Cambridgeshire, 1974 county of Cambridgeshire).
Motte and bailey castle with associated cultivation earthworks and fishponds, located on the tip of a low promontory. The castle utilises a natural hillock near the end of the spur, and the central motte is largely a remodelling of the summit. During the period of occupation, the stronghold crowning the summit was surrounded by a circular ditch measuring about 10m wide and 2m deep, and with a diameter of about 50m. May have been erected by the de Bolbec family between 1086 and 1134, or by the Abbey of Ramsey which was granted the manor by Walter de Bolbec in 1134. Alternatively, it may have been built during The Anarchy, either by the sons of Aubrey de Senlis, who seized Woodwalton Manor in 1143-4, or by Ernald, son of Geoffrey de Mandeville, who moved his forces from Ramsay to Woodwalton after the death of his father in 1144.
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 TL21058276
PastScape number;
366971
Books
- Salter, Mike, 2001, The Castles of East Anglia (Malvern) p22
Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge) p13 [slight]
Taylor, Alison, 1986, Castles of Cambridgeshire (Cambridge)
King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol1
Fry, P.S., 1980, Castles of the British Isles (David and Charles) p320
Renn, D.F., 1973 (2edn), Norman Castles of Britain (John Baker)
RCHME, 1926, An inventory of the historical monuments in Huntingdonshire p298
Inskip Ladds, S., 1926, in Page, Wm and Proby, Granville (eds), VCH Huntingdon Vol1 p290
Journal Articles
- Brown, A.E. and Taylor, C.C., 1978, Cambridgeshire earthwork surveys: III. Woodwalton Castle’ Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society Vol68 p62-65
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