The Man Who Bought A Castle
Alderton, Northants
14 January 2001
Norman castles
Motte and bailey

Following the Norman Conquest in 1066, the new rulers of England quickly erected castles throughout the country in order to consolidate their power. The most commonly preserved form of these castles is the motte and bailey. The motte is a flat-topped mound of earth, generally built on high ground and surrounded by a ditch, the earth from which was used to build up the motte. Initially these would have had a wooden tower, overlooking the bailey and commanding the nearby town, village or countryside. Later the wooden structures were often replaced by stone keeps.

The bailey was a larger area adjacent to the motte, itself surrounded by a ditch, or moat. It could vary in both size and shape, and Norman castles often had more than one. The ramparts rising above the surrounding ditch would have been topped by a wooden stockade, while the area it enclosed contained wooden buildings. Again, both the stockade and, to a lesser extent, the internal buildings were later reconstructed in stone.

Ringwork castles

Ringwork castles are less commonly preserved today, although in the early period after the Norman invasion their relative ease and speed of construction meant that these were often the first structures built by the invaders. Many motte and bailey castles started off as ringworks.

The ringwork castles varied in size and form, but generally they consisted of roughly circular earthworks made up of a bank and ditch. Again this would have been topped by a timber palisade. The area enclosed contained wooden buildings, including one that would have served as a central watchtower in place of that on the motte. An additional bailey might also have been built adjacent to the main enclosure, although often the ringwork enclosures served this purpose themselves.

Ringworks often utilised existing Roman fortifications or Anglo-Saxon burhs. One reason why they are seen less commonly today is that as the Normans consolidated their power, they strengthened and redeveloped the original ringworks into the motte and bailey structures and stone castles that are such a well-known feature of the historic environment of England and Wales.

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