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Old Windsor Palace
Also known as, or recorded in historical
documents as; Kingsbury
In the civil parish of Old Windsor.
In the historic county of Berkshire (Modern Authority of Windsor & Maidenhead, 1974 county of Berkshire).
The site of a palace used by Edward the Confessor and the early Norman Kings of England at Kingsbury, Old Windsor, was excavated by Berkshire Archeaology Society in 1953 and Brian Hope-Taylor for the Ministry of Works from 1954 to 1958. The site began as a small settlement, the earliest phase of which probably lies under the churchyard. Phase II was probably a farm or small village dated circa 650 to 700 to 750 AD. Phase III probably went on to C9, and a water-mill with three vertical wheels is probably of that period. A stone building nearby was destroyed by fire in the late C9-C10. (Possibly due to a Viking raid) It seems probable that the tradition of a Royal residence at Old Windsor had begun by C9. A water mill of Norse type with horizontal wheel was in use up to early C11; Later features of the site are timber buildings on sleeper beams of C10 or C11. A gilt bronze sword guard of just pre-conquest date was among the finds. Old Windsor features as an important vill in Domesday Book but was abandoned for the New Windsor site in the reign of Henry I. The site was levelled by the plough in C12 and a building known as the Grange dated C13/C14 was the last notable feature of the site. A great deal of pottery and other debris was recovered. Fragments of ditch and a pit, visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs, may relate to this site.
This site has been described as a;
Palace.
The confidence
that this site is a medieval fortification or palace is Certain.
Nothing visible remains.
The Ordnance Survey Map Grid Reference is SU99127457
PastScape number;
251386
- Web site links
- Books
- Keevill, Graham D., 2000, Medieval Palaces, An Archaeology (Stroud; Tempus) p22, 27, 102
- Journal Articles
- 1958, Medieval Archaeology Vol2 p183-5
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