<< Our Photo Pages >> Castle Hill (Bishopton) - Misc. Earthwork in England in County Durham
Submitted by Anne T on Monday, 16 October 2017 Page Views: 2374
Multi-periodSite Name: Castle Hill (Bishopton) Alternative Name: Bishopton CastleCountry: England
NOTE: This site is 2.885 km away from the location you searched for.
County: County Durham Type: Misc. Earthwork
Nearest Town: Darlington Nearest Village: Bishopton
Map Ref: NZ3667020898
Latitude: 54.581962N Longitude: 1.434161W
Condition:
| 5 | Perfect |
| 4 | Almost Perfect |
| 3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
| 2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
| 1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
| 0 | No data. |
| -1 | Completely destroyed |
| 5 | Superb |
| 4 | Good |
| 3 | Ordinary |
| 2 | Not Good |
| 1 | Awful |
| 0 | No data. |
| 5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
| 4 | Short walk on a footpath |
| 3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
| 2 | A long walk |
| 1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
| 0 | No data. |
| 5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
| 4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
| 3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
| 2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
| 1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
| 0 | no data |
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Anne T visited on 15th Oct 2017 - their rating: Cond: 2 Amb: 4 Access: 4 Castle Hill, Bishoptop: This monument is literally just within sight of the church, just over 420 metres to the north west, at the south eastern edge of the village, opposite the pub and next to a garage.
There is a public footpath which runs through the field in which this motte and bailey is sited, accessible by a rather tumbledown stile. There is also an information board, although this had cracked and fallen off its plinth. We pieced it back together to have a quick read, although the text was so faded we couldn’t really make it out.
The site is really well preserved, and I’ve not seen another quite like this. It is as if someone has built a large hillfort in a flat piece of land and put a round mound towards one end. There are also extensive earthworks leading off this.
The motte itself has been fenced off, presumably to stop the sheep and cattle from damaging it, although there is a gate in the south western part of the fence, with a very steep path leading up to the top of the motte.
We walked around the exterior twice, marvelling at the deep ditches and banks.
This extraordinarily well preserved set of earthworks include a motte and bailey with large moat crossed by two raised causeways. It is recorded as both Pastscape Monument No. 25795 and Historic England List ID 1008668.
The site was first mentioned in AD 1143, when it was recorded that it had been fortified, indicating there had been structures here beforehand. Historic England describes the site as "the motte stands to a height of 11.5m and measures 55m across at the base and is surrounded by a moat 10 to 15m wide and 1.4 to 3.5m deep. Immediately to the north west of the motte there is a bailey which measures 80m north east to south west by 40m north west to south east. Its north west side is bounded by a ditch 16m across and 2.7m deep, its north east side by a bank 0.4m wide and 0.4m high and its south west side is bounded by a trivallate earthwork 25m across. The western boundary of the site consists of a double ditch system which runs parallel with the Bishopton Beck. Within the eastern part of the bailey there are the remains of a rectangular building measuring 28m by 9.5m, and the remains of a second building abutting the northern wall of the bailey. The motte and the bailey is surrounded on the east by a substantial moat, crossed by two raised causeways 1.3m high; the moat is up to 70m wide and is 1.5m deep and was fed with water, by a series of artificial channels, from the Bishopton Beck."
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