Dalkeith: Duchess Anna’s Old Castle

In the first of two articles Dr Cristian Clarkson, Heritage Consultant at Simpson & Brown takes a look some of the work she has done at various castles during her time with the firm.

The exterior of Dalkeith Palace is easily accessible to visitors, standing within a popular country park south-west of Edinburgh. Its interiors, however, have been largely hidden away since its construction for Anna, Duchess of Buccleuch, in the very early eighteenth century, and it has been relatively little-studied. Duchess Anna commissioned a radical remodelling of Dalkeith Castle, the Buccleuch family seat, from architect James Smith, and the family used the house for two hundred years. Clumsily converted for office use in the 1970s, and then used as the study-abroad centre of the University of Wisconsin from the 1980s, the building was vacated in 2021 and new uses are currently being evaluated by the Buccleuch Estate. Simpson & Brown completed a conservation plan for the building in 2024, one of the key questions of which was how far there were remains of Dalkeith Castle within the Palace, and what that castle was like.

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Dalkeith Castle probably originated in the fourteenth century as a Douglas fortification, and was expanded by the 4th Earl of Morton in the sixteenth century. It was bought by the Scotts, then Earls of Buccleuch, shortly before the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the seventeenth century, and passed to Anna Scott in 1661 when she became Duchess in her own right. The fact that there is at least some medieval fabric remaining at Dalkeith is clear: there is a rib-vaulted basement room in the north range, at the centre of an area of very thick walls. There is also an asymmetry in the Palace’s plan: although the south entrance front is highly regular, the west range in fact meets the north range at an angle, immediately suggesting the re-use of earlier fabric. Several locked voids in the plan of this range suggest the historic presence of a kitchen with large flues which were blocked by James Smith.

Basement of North Range at Dalkeith Palace, copyright Simpson Brown

There are two key images of the historic castle: Slezer’s engraving (incorrectly labelled Glamis in his publication), and an unnamed, undated plan held in the Buccleuch collection which shows one storey of the castle. Slezer shows a castle built around two courts, with the inner court on three sides replicating the plan of the existing Palace. At the north-east corner, a tower over three or four storeys with bartizans and pedimented window-surrounds stands over the existing vaulted cellar, while a low range to the west must contain the historic kitchen. On the east side, there is a regular range which stands where there are barrel-vaulted cellars in the present Palace. The plan shows a turnpike stair where there are now empty round rooms at each level in the former stairwell, and a scale-and-platt stair on the same location as the existing state stair. At the north-east corner of the castle there is a projecting round tower shown which almost survived to the present building, as later documents show.

Phased Plan of Dalkeith Palace, copyright Simpson Brown

Little is known about the castle’s interiors, but there was something to be gleaned from the huge wealth of documentary evidence relating to Duchess Anna’s rebuilding. The Buccleuch archive, held partly in the National Records of Scotland, includes many receipts for work on the building. Although the majority of these are for the new eighteenth-century fabric, there are some which relate to cosmetic renovations on the old castle: the Duchess travelled north after decades in London to stay in the castle, meet James Smith and sign contracts for the rebuild, and the house needed some work in advance of her stay. Invoices for plastering list the rooms of the castle, including ‘the great painted room’, as well as ‘the King’s room’ with an adjacent study; these entries are arranged by floor and give some suggestion of the location of these rooms within the building. They also give clues as to which rooms were retained: one room listed is known as the ‘stone hall’, and a room with this name appears consistently in invoices for work in the new building as well. It is probably the vaulted room above the kitchen, used by the steward.

We also examined a series of design development drawings by James Smith, in which he helpfully shades fabric to be retained in the new house. None of these drawings are exactly as-executed (William Adam’s plans in Vitruvius Scoticus are the closest to the finished house), but show that initially Smith hoped to raze the old palace and eventually retained a great deal of the castle at basement and ground levels. There appear to have been particular difficulties around the north-east corner, where the plans were to retain the existing round tower; this was not carried off in the final design and would have made an interesting companion-space to the exquisite neighbouring ‘picture closet’ with its elaborate parquet floor and painted mirror by Jakob Bogdany. Smith also workshopped an option where the original re-entrant stair would be retained with a new branch down into the entrance hall, but this was not executed.

The Buccleuch archive also contains the details of a court case between Smith and the Duchess after the completion of the building, which reveals some of the decision-making process behind the retention of castle fabric. The Duchess complained that the building was poorly constructed, with cracks in the walls and chimneys which smoked: Smith blamed the Duchess for insisting that he keep old masonry rather than building anew. Presumably her primary motivation was financial, but her letters reveal a certain sentimentality for her childhood home, which she left after her father’s death and before her marriage to the Duke of Monmouth. She wrote to a friend that he might think she was extravagant in fitting out her new house with marble, ‘but it is to shew you I do not Dispyse my old Castle.’

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Pembroke Castle: Elite Use of Outer Ward Space

Buildings archaeologist, Neil Ludlow, gives an update of the work that has been done since the Trust funded two projects at Pembroke Castle.

Two CST-funded projects, in 2016 and 2018, looked at a late-medieval building complex in the outer ward at Pembroke Castle (Day and Ludlow 2016; Meek and Ludlow 2019). All above-ground remains of the buildings have gone, but vestiges of walling are marked here on a plan from 1787, while a drawing from 1802 appears to show a surviving doorway. The buildings were part-excavated in the 1930s, but sadly without record. However, the presence of walls, floors and stairs was noted, and a cess-pit from which was retrieved a Limoges-enamelled bronze fitting of late thirteenth/early fourteenth-century date. The wall-lines show as strong parchmarks in dry summers (see Fig. 1).

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Figure 1: Phased plan of Pembroke Castle, copyright Neil Ludlow

The spacious outer ward was added to Pembroke Castle in the 1240s-50s, and appears to have been an entirely new enclosure. It was not ditched, the limestone bedrock instead being levelled as a platform to receive the curtain walls. And a flanking tower, the so-called ‘Dungeon Tower’, had been built against the inner curtain only 20 years previously, implying that it was still a forward line of defence. Moreover, it subsumed part of the town as at Swansea (Glam.) and Ludlow (Shrops.). Geophysics by Dyfed Archaeology in 2016 suggested it was largely an empty space, perhaps intended for ‘civil’ assembly, military gatherings, pageantry/display or leisure – or perhaps all four. By the early fourteenth century, it appears to have contained a garden and it may always have been perceived as ‘gentrified’ space, rather than seeing the kind of purely functional use that is normally ascribed to outer enclosures (Ludlow 2017).

So the complex, which was clearly substantial, was interpreted as high-status and residential: taken along with the parchmark evidence, the geophysics appeared to indicate a substantial, winged hall-house, with a possible yard to the southeast conjoined with a further, smaller building. Two trenches were excavated across the winged house in 2018, by Dyfed Archaeology, revealing walling, a helical mural stair, and the cess-pit exposed in the 1930s (Fig. 2). The excavated area was limited and the full layout of the complex not revealed. Neither was close dating evidence forthcoming.

Two more trenches were dug in 2023, again by Dyfed Archaeology but this time funded by the Pembroke Castle Trust (Poucher 2025). They produced a couple of big surprises. Firstly, a cellar was revealed beneath the southern wing of the hall-house. And what had been interpreted as an open yard, to the southeast, was revealed to be another roofed building, with a lateral fireplace in its south wall (Fig. 2). The base of a further mural stair was exposed in the same wall. The physical relationships showed that this building pre-dated the winged hall-house, but close dating evidence was again slight.

Figure 2: Plan of the excavation trenches over the hall-house (adapted from Poucher 2023). The winged house to the southwest (left), overlying a cellar, appears to be secondary to the open Phase 1 Hall.

While only four small trenches have been dug, and the site is still very little understood, we can perhaps propose a conjectured sequence. Its scale and location show the house to have been an elite structure from the first. On current evidence, it appears to have begun as a large, free-standing hall, with an attached, storeyed unit at its southwest end overlying a barrel-vaulted cellar; the latter is of a regional form similar to late-medieval cellars that still survive below properties in Pembroke town. This end unit was subsequently replaced with, or adapted into, a winged house that was apparently self-contained: it appears to have comprised a central space (another hall?), associated with the cess-pit and flanked by storeyed wings; the upper floor of the southern wing was accessed via a helical stair.

Comparison with similar buildings, and the sparse dating evidence, suggests both phases are fifteenth-century. By this time, the domestic buildings in the inner ward had a history of neglect, coupled with an increasing burden of administrative and penal machinery. The outer bailey was both quieter and emptier, and had perhaps always seen ‘elite’ forms of use, with at least one garden (later two); understandably, it might have been preferred for seigneurial residence. A similar development occurred in another caput castle, at Montgomery, where a mansion house was built in the outer enclosure during the 1530s.

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And the Pembroke house appears not to have sat in isolation. The south curtain wall has, at some period, been doubled in thickness with over two metres of masonry applied to its internal face (Fig. 3). This has long been regarded as a Civil War measure against artillery (see King 1978, 120), but an earth fill was normally chosen for this purpose, while the thin-walled mural passage lies on the exposed external face. I suggest this thickening belongs instead to the fifteenth century, to create a broad ‘promenade’ at parapet level. The use of parapets as promenades has been suggested at a number of castles, from the twelfth century onwards: they provided a viewpoint from which a lord could show off his domain to distinguished guests, while offering scope for high-status recreational use – particularly by women. The Pembroke parapet is approached by two staircases in the thickened section, both of a somewhat ‘processional’ nature. One, a mural stair, is long and straight, while the second wraps around the Henry VII Tower as a double flight of persuasively late-medieval form, and was clearly designed to be seen; it is not obviously military (Figs. 1 and 3). Lying immediately south of the house, it is accompanied by a second ornamental feature – a projecting porch, leading to a latrine within the wall-thickening. This porch, like the thickening, has traditionally been assigned to the Civil War period (King 1978, 94 and n. 75), but in overall form it is not unlike the corbelled oriels seen in later fifteenth-century domestic work (Figs. 1 and 3). Though substantially restored, all these features respect surviving physical evidence; together with a second garden mentioned in a source from 1481-2, they appear to represent a prestige suite of ‘eye-catchers’, clustered around and associated with the hall-house. It is likely, too, that use of the latrine itself was restricted by status and/or gender. The infilling of the inner ward ditch may belong to the same period, to create more seigneurial space.

Figure 3: The outer curtain wall from northwest, showing the double flight of stairs around the Henry VII Tower, to left, and the latrine porch at centre. The parchmarks of the hall-house are visible at bottom left.

Three candidates had the resources to build on this scale. It is possible that the Phase 1 hall was built by Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, earl of Pembroke 1413-47, for his personal use. His political influence was in decline by 1441, and he may have intended to use Pembroke as a regular residence, far from his powerful opponents: he appears to have already built a smaller hunting-lodge for himself, just over the river from the castle at Monkton. If so, it is possible that the Phase 2 winged house was added by Jasper Tudor, soon after he acquired the earldom in 1452, in anticipation of occasional visits and to announce his ‘arrival’ among the leading aristocracy. It might not, however, allow enough time for the promenade to be built: after 1454, and until 1461, the Wars of the Roses forced him into more-or-less permanent residence at Pembroke, but in an environment that may militate against such overtly domestic work. Jasper seems moreover to have rarely visited Pembroke after the war, when he concentrated on his favoured castles at Sudeley and Thornbury in Gloucestershire. It may then be that the winged house and promenade were added by the Yorkist leader William Herbert the elder, who held Jasper’s forfeit lands between 1461 and 1469. His work at Raglan in Monmouthshire, where the castle was transformed into a magnificent palace, shows him to have been an ambitious builder.

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References

Day, A. and Ludlow, N., 2016 ‘Pembroke Castle Geophysical Survey 2016’ (report by Dyfed Archaeological Trust for the Castle Studies Trust: see –

http:/castlestudiestrust.org/docs/Pembroke_Castle_Geophysical%20_Survey_FINAL.pdf).

King, D. J. C., 1978 ‘Pembroke Castle’, Archaeologia Cambrensis 127, 75-121.

Ludlow, N., 2017 ’Medieval Britain and Ireland, Fieldwork Highlights in 2016: Pembroke Castle outer ward – gentrified space and Tudor Mansion?’, Medieval Archaeology 61/2, 428-35.

Ludlow, N., forthcoming ‘Two baronial castles in Pembrokeshire: Picton and Pembroke’, Journ. British Archaeological Association 178.

Meek, J. and Ludlow, N., 2019 ‘Pembroke Castle: archaeological evaluation, 2018’ (report by Dyfed Archaeological Trust for the Castle Studies Trust: see – http://www.castlestudiestrust.org/docs/Pembroke_Castle_Evaluation_2018_FINAL.pdf.

Poucher, P., 2025 ‘Pembroke Castle: archaeological evaluation, 2023’ (report by Heneb – Dyfed Archaeology, report no. 2023-33).

Echoes from the Earth: A Community-Led Archaeological Project at Crookston Castle

Chair of the Friends of Crookston Castle, David McDondald and Historic Environment Scotland’s Dr Hazel Blake look forward to the community geophysical survey days that are starting on Friday that the Trust is funding.

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As Glasgow celebrates its 850th anniversary, the Friends of Crookston Castle are proud to be contributing to the city’s story with a major new heritage project.

Re-established in 2024, our volunteer-led group exists to care for and celebrate Glasgow’s only surviving medieval castle, Crookston.

Crookston Castle copyright Friends of Crookston Castle

Once surrounded by ancient woodland the Castle is now encircled by twentieth-century housing. It has stood as a landmark in the life of generations of local people, but many of them do not realise just how deep its history runs.

That’s why we’re excited to be launching Echoes from the Earth – Crookston Castle’s Hidden Stories, supported by the Castle Studies Trust.

At the centre of the project is a three-day geophysical survey, the most comprehensive investigation of the site in decades. The survey will use three techniques; gradiometry, earth resistance, and ground-penetrating radar to build a picture of what lies beneath the castle grounds and the surrounding area.

With the help of Historic Environment Scotland, local volunteers will be trained to use the archaeological equipment providing our partner schools with a unique learning experience, while boosting the skills of early career archaeologists and local students. Crookston Castle is an unusual stone castle built around 1400 within earlier earthworks constructed in the 1100s. It is the only surviving medieval castle in the City of Glasgow and is in the care of Historic Environment Scotland (HES; Crookston Castle | Public Body for Scotland’s Historic Environment). 

The site is a well-known local landmark and has an active ‘Friends of Crookston Castle’ group from the local community who value the monument as an important part of their historic environment. Working in partnership with the ‘Friends’, the archaeological survey team at HES will be undertaking geophysical survey at Crookston Castle. This has two main objectives – firstly to understand more about what may lie below the ground surface, and secondly to provide experience of geophysical survey to the Friends of Crookston and support them in finding out more about their monument.

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At any stone-built castle, it is inevitable that impressive standing masonry is a focus of attention. But these were monuments that underwent changes and development, perhaps because of war damage or as needs changed, and may be one aspect of a much longer span of activity on the site. So, there may be more to them than immediately meets the eye. The planned gradiometer, earth resistance and ground penetrating radar surveys (see here for more information on these techniques) will provide views of what archaeological remains lie below the ground surface. We hope this will provide more information about the history of the castle, enriching the stories that the remains can tell us and informing future management of the site.

Crookston Castle, copyright Friends of Crookston Castle

Crookston Castle matters to the local community, and that is one reason why it is important to HES to be working with the ‘Friends’ to better understand their monument. By providing experience of geophysical survey and the interpretation of the results, we have an opportunity to share experience and knowledge and together contribute to a better understanding of the site now and in the future.

Geophysics is exciting because you never know what may pop up in the survey data, lurking unsuspected under the ground surface! But there are already two potential areas of interest that we know should benefit from survey. One area to the south of the stone castle may contain medieval activity, while to the west there is what may have been the original western entrance. Both areas will be an initial target for the geophysical survey, with flexibility to target further areas across the site.

Crookston Castle is valued by its local community. It is a great opportunity for HES, as the national publicly funded body for the historic environment, to be able to engage directly with the Friends and support them in their interest in the monument. 

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If you would like to get involved with the group, get in touch at Crookstoncastlefriends@gmail.com and follow them on Facebook.

So, if Crookston is close to you and you’d like to get involved in the project, get in touch or follow our progress on our social media and help us unearth the history and stories of a site that even after all these years still has secrets to share and that continues to surprise us, inspire us, and to remind us that the past is never quite as far away as it seems.

Medieval Greece – A Forgotten World

Project lead of the 2022 project Dating the Medieval Towers of Chalkida, Greece, Dr Andrew Blackler, gives an update on how work on the project has progressed.

Mention the Acropolis to anyone and they will probably immediately identify it with Greece. Yet the Norman invasions of Greece just fifteen years after the battle of Hastings are almost unknown. Few will know too that the magnificent horses adorning St Mark’s Basilica in Venice were pillaged from Constantinople in 1204, and that much of Central Greece and its islands were ruled for nearly three hundred years by a succession of western adventurers from as far away as Catalan Spain, until the region’s annexation by the Ottoman empire at the end of the fifteenth century. This is simply illustrated in the figure below, based on a map of Central Greece by the Venetian cartographer Bartolomeo dalli Sonetti c.1485. at a time when Athens was just a small provincial town whilst Negroponte was a major city.

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Figure 1: Three Centuries of Western Rule

This is the background to the five-year survey of the hinterland of medieval Chalkida (Negroponte) on the island of Evia (Euboea), which I was invited to join by Professor Joanita Vroom of the University of Leiden Dr Alexandra Kostarelli of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Euboea in 2020 – the first major archaeological survey in Greece to focus exclusively on the medieval period. Initially, times were tough as the COVID shutdown and lack of funding restricted our work, but slowly our team established a track record supported by sponsorship from institutions such as the Castle Studies Trust (2022).

This project, in conjunction with the National Centre of Scientific Research laboratory at the University of Athens, undertook the radiocarbon dating of sections of wood taken from within the walls of a group of medieval towers, a ubiquitous feature of the region. It was very successful. For the first time we were able to conclusively prove that the more than one hundred towers, that once stood on the island, were not built immediately after 1204 as part of a colonial process of control and exploitation, but during the fourteenth century, probably to protect local villages against pirate attack from the sea, an endemic problem of the era.

Figure 2: Taking wood samples from a tower, copyright Dr Andrew Blackler

During five years of work over the summer months our team of over thirty specialists and student volunteers has now recorded all the known medieval monuments of the region. Using intensive surface survey techniques and trial excavation trenches, evidence from ceramic, coin, glass, iron, fauna and bone finds is slowly allowing us to reconstruct a picture of the medieval life of the region. Trading links have also been identified east as far as the Black Sea and Palestine, and west to other centres around the Mediterranean. More recently, we have attracted major sponsorship and are now undertaking geophysical surveys to identify structures hidden under the earth, digital reconstruction of selected monuments and have even instituted a second phase of radiocarbon dating. In parallel, specialists have been investigating the medieval archives of the Republic of Venice and Ottoman administrative records held in Istanbul. A detailed report of the results of the first two years’ survey campaigns can be found at https://poj.peeters-leuven.be/content.php?url=article&id=3293423&journal_code=PHA&download=yes

I will leave you with a final thought: the medieval world, despite the slow pace of travel, was much more inter-connected than people generally believe. Two examples illustrate this. Many know that Harald Hardrada, king of Norway and the last great Viking, invaded England in 1066, and was killed at Stamford Bridge just weeks before the battle of Hastings. Few realise that he made his fortune fighting for over ten years in the elite Byzantine Varangian Guard, and that this had probably helped fund his claim to the Norwegian throne. Recent analysis of finds in the British Museum from Sutton Hoo also suggests that Anglo-Saxon mercenaries were even fighting alongside the Byzantine emperor Justinian in Asia Minor as early as the sixth century. This is the sort of international research that the ‘seed capital’ provided by the Castle Studies Trust has spawned over the last three years.

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Leybourne Castle, Kent: a monument to female patronage?

In the second half of 2024, Heneb’s Phil Poucher with the support and expert analysis of Neil Ludlow did the first ever detailed modern survey of the privately owned castle of Leybourne Castle, Kent, which has often intrigued castellologists as a key stepping stone in the development of gatehouses. Here Neil Ludlow explains what they found.

Leybourne Castle gatehouse was introduced to this blog last summer, just before the commencement of a programme of CST funded survey and research. The work is now complete, and really does show the value of in-depth studies like this: a somewhat different, and much more interesting picture has emerged. The Welsh Marches aspects of the gatehouse design had been noted, along with patterns of baronial influence including the close links between Leybourne’s lords and the Valence earls of Pembroke; a start-date between c.1300 and 1310 had also been mooted. However, certain key features revealed by detailed study of the gatehouse allow its dating and affinities to be refined more closely, while pointing fairly persuasively to a female builder.

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Figure 1: Plan of Leybourne Castle copyright Neil Ludlow

With origins as a ringwork castle, Leybourne was later ‘fortified’ in masonry, rather lightly, to become a rectangular courtyard house somewhat awkwardly superimposed upon the earlier earthwork. The masonry comprises a twin-towered gatehouse attached to a large, rectangular storeyed building – now gone – that may have been a chapel or, perhaps more likely, a chamber-block. The latter appears to have been connected by a passage to a third D-shaped tower at the southeast corner. This tower lies opposite a smaller, rectangular building at the southwest corner, that may represent a service-block and overlying chamber, with a Great Hall formerly lying east-west between them. The remaining side of the castle, to the west, was defined by a lowish wall.

Figure 2: Leybourne Castle Gatehouse north elevation copyright Neil Ludlow
Figure 3: Leybourne Castle Gatehouse south elevation copyright Neil Ludlow

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Stylistic evidence suggests all the masonry at the castle belongs to one overall campaign, centering on the years 1305-25 and showing influence from the Welsh borderlands – probably via associations between the Leybourne lords and two Marcher families, the Valences and the Cliffords. The evidence for its dating and affinities is fairly precise, and can be summarised as follows –

  • The gatehouse shows a high outer arch, a feature with origins in the Welsh Marches 1280-1300.
  • It also shows fully-oilletted cruciform loops, which were similarly developed in the Welsh Marches 1280-1300 where they were extensively employed by the Clare lords of Glamorgan, and also by the Valences. One of the Leybourne loops survives unaltered, demonstrating that they are original features, though mostly now rebuilt or modified.
  • The gate-passage lies beneath a quadripartite rib-vault, normally confined to the 1330s onwards but with an early example in the gatehouse built by Aymer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, at Bampton Castle, Oxon., in 1315-24.
  • A ‘letterbox chute’ overlies the entry, as at Caerphilly Castle, Glam. (1270s) and Bampton Castle (1315-24).
  • The entry is deeply recessed between flanking towers, as in Edward I’s Welsh Castles at Rhuddlan, Harlech and Beaumaris (1270s-1300).
  • The windows have double-chamfered rebated surrounds, in a Marches style and similar to windows built by the Valences (1280s-90s) and another Marcher lord, Robert de Clifford (1300-1314), eg. at Goodrich Castle (Herefs.) and Brough Castle (Westmorland).
  • The Southeast Tower shows a doorway with a raised threshold (like a ship’s bulkhead door), as in work from 1300-1310 at Bothwell Castle, Lanarks., and Brougham Castle, Westmorland, by Aymer de Valence and Robert de Clifford respectively. Two more possible raised thresholds have been revealed at Leybourne in service trenches.
  • The portcullis would have been fully-visible when raised, as at Chirk Castle, Denbighs., and Tonbridge Castle in Kent, which itself shows considerable Marches influence; both are probably from the 1290s.
  • The portcullis grooves have ¾ round profiles as in the outer gate at at Corfe Castle (1280s), but their margins are refined with rounded chamfers.
  • The gatehouse is flanked by a D-shaped latrine turret that may be influenced by a similar turret at the Clares’ Llangibby Castle, Mon. (1307-14), at least in function, if not in its precise form: unlike Llangibby, it lies parallel with the axis of the tower.
  • It houses a fireplace with a rounded back, normally characteristic of earlier work but also seen in the Great Hall fireplaces at Pembroke Castle (William de Valence, 1270s) and Haverfordwest Castle, Pembs. (probably Aymer de Valence, 1308-15).
  • Aspects of their design, detail and planning suggest the D-shaped Southeast Tower, the former ?chamber-block and the Southwest Building were all contemporary with the gatehouse.

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During the period 1305-25, Leybourne Castle appears to have been in the sole possession of a woman – Alice de Leybourne (née de Toeni). She received the castle and manor on the death of her husband Thomas de Leybourne in 1307, and all evidence suggests that she held it, in her own right, until her own death in 1324. She was the only beneficiary when her brother Robert died in 1310, providing the necessary resources. Under her tenure, Leybourne appears to have retained its status as the caput of an extensive Kentish lordship, and it is likely that the gatehouse represented accommodation, and administrative space, for its officials. Alice may therefore join the list, currently very short, of women castle-builders.

A number of other results have emerged from the present study. I suggest that a significant amount of work was undertaken by the Leybourne family at Leeds Castle, Kent, before it was acquired by Edward I’s queen Eleanor in c.1278, that this work included the creation of the lakes for which the site is celebrated, and that they may have been the inspiration for the lakes at Caerphilly Castle. It is also possible that the extensive work from c.1300 at Brough Castle, Westmorland, was undertaken by another woman – Alice’s aunt, Idonea de Leybourne.

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To see the full report please go here: Leybourne, Kent | Castle Studies Trust

Please note Leybourne Castle is privately owned and not open to the public.

Castle Studies Trust Grants Go Beyond the Site

Your donations make our research grants possible. But the grants go beyond the initial research, into the continuing and lasting impact which carries beyond far beyond the excavation season or the granting year. Research from two Castle Studies Trust grants can be seen at the upcoming Leeds International Medieval Congress in July 2025.

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Every year, over three thousand medievalists from around the globe meet at the University of Leeds to present research, share new knowledge, make connections with others, and grow and foster the global community of medievalists. This major international conference also provides CST grantees a further platform to inform scholars about their research into castles. In 2025, under the special theme of ‘Worlds of Education,’ the Castle Studies Trust is proud to highlight papers and projects which have received CST support, financially or otherwise:

Initial images of Canterbury keep from the Visualising Canterbury Castle project, copyright Christchurch Canterbury

Prof. Leonie Hicks of Canterbury Christ Church University will be presenting initial research from Canterbury Castle in a paper titled ‘Digital Interludes: Methods of Teaching Castles.’ This work looks at her department’s digital castle work of which the project ‘Visualising Canterbury Castle,’ which was awarded £9631 from CST in 2025 is part of. This dynamic, multi-discipline project intends to create a detailed digital plan of the keep to understand the site, largely now in ruin but scheduled to reopen in correlation with the 1000th anniversary of William the Conqueror’s birth.

Excavating Newhouse Castle, copyright Ryan Prescott

Dr Ryan Prescott (University of Leeds) will be presenting further research on Newhouse Castle, Lincolnshire, in a paper titled ‘Reframing Newhouse Castle: Lincolnshire and the “Anarchy.”’. In 2024, this project was awarded £9867 from the Castle Studies Trust. Dr Prescott and team are seeking to understand and determine the nature of the castle at Newhouse and the lower gentry’s places within the sphere of the Anglo-Norman Civil War (1138-1154.) As seen with this paper, the impact of this award is continuing beyond the excavation which the CST funded.

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Your support and donations make these projects possible, including the lasting impact we see from them in the academic sphere as well as the wider world.

Further research and outreach fostered by the Castle Studies Trust will also be seen at Leeds. For example, two papers stem from initial presentations at our 2023 CST anniversary symposium.

One of our assessors, Dr Erik Matthews with the Hornby Castle Project, Northallerton, will be presenting continuing research on ‘The Religious Experiences of an Elite Household in Medieval Wensleydale, 1000-1550.’ Dr Matthews initially presented this research on ‘Hornby Castle, Wensleydale, North Yorkshire: An Elite Holiday Home of the Later Middle Ages’ at our 2023 anniversary symposium. Dr Matthews also acts as one of the CST’s expert assessors for grant applications. You can read more about his work at Hornby at our blog.

Similarly, Dr Lorna-Jane Richardson, University of East Anglia, will be speaking at Leeds about ‘Modern Myth and ‘Medieval’ Identity: The Case of Bungay Castle.’ Dr Richardson likewise first presented this research at our 2023 anniversary symposium. You can read more about her work from her blog post here.

Possible image of Eleanor of Castile at Overton Church, copyright Rachel Swallow

More of our Trustees and Assessors are also presenting work at Leeds: Dr Rachel Swallow of Swallowtail Archaeology will present her ongoing work on Queen Eleanor of Castile and the contexts of her castles with a paper ‘Leisure, Literature and Legend: Reconstructing Edward I and Queen Eleanor of Castile’s Castles and Boroughs through Innovative Landscape Contexts.’ You can read more about Dr Swallow’s ongoing research on the topic in her blog post with CST. Dr Swallow is one of our team of expert assessors for grant applications.

Dr Katherine Weikert, University of Winchester, will present new research into castles, pedagogy and the ideas-informed society with co-researcher Ruth Luzmore (University of Southampton) in their paper, ‘Timeless Terrains: Medieval and Modern Mental Landscapes Today.’ Dr Weikert has been a Trustee of the Castle Studies Trust since 2020.

From grantees to trustees, the Castle Studies Trust is at the forefront of new, exciting research into castles. Your support makes this all possible, and donations, however small, are put to good use. Thank you for your support.

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You can continue to help fund our work by going here: Kindlink Donation Form App

Recording, final excavation, reinstatement

Simon Coxall, Dig Director of our Clavering Castle excavation looks at the end of the excavation and what happens next.

The excavation phase at Clavering castle neared completion in time for a community open day on Saturday 21st June 2025.

As well as welcoming around two hundred members of the public on a guided tour of the excavation trenches, the project has been blessed with visits from Historic England and Professor Robert Liddiard of the University of East Anglia.

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Trenches 1 and 2 at Clavering Castle from the Air copyright Simon Coxall

Trench 1 and 2 have now been thoroughly excavated, with just a little more to do in Trench 2 of which more below. Across much of the trench the layers representing the top of the original castle platform have been reached. The castle platform approximately 100m W- E by 60m N-S and approximately 4m deep was constructed by placing a large ‘brick’ of made-up ground in the valley of the River Stort and using the course of the river as the northern arm of the moat.  The remaining three arms of the moat were then cut, their contents in part being used to build up the platform. Accordingly, there is no natural on site within reach of the excavation trenches, which have a maximum depth of c 1.25m. Nevertheless the uppermost surface of the platform at the time of its original construction is identifiable across both trenches. This layer is uniform orange-brown compacted clay with flint rubble in appearance and bears no evidence for occupation.

Chalk floor of possible gatehouse porter’s lodge in trench one, copyright Jeremy Cunnington

In Trench 1 cleaning and recording casts into sharper focus the features of the gatehouse entrance to the castle estate first exposed by geophysics in 2020. This consisted of a metalled trackway approximately 4-5m in width on a broadly N-S trajectory and bordered to its east by a flint walled building (??porters lodge) with chalk rendered internal walls and surviving chalk floor. At the time of the demolition, c1540’s, the tiles of its roof cascaded onto the adjacent trackway. The external faces of this structure directly abutted the trackway but had been completely removed down to their sandy gravel base by the demolition crew. On the western side of the trackway a further structure had been even more comprehensively demolished, the evidence being limited to a scattering of flint nodules just below the topsoil and a large pit full of substantial daub with their rod impressions still intact. There appears no later disturbance of the site suggesting, following its concerted demolition, neglect sealed the site as a capsule of life on site between c1050 and 1550.

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Some of the finds from 18 June from trackway of trench 1 from the earliest context excavated, copyright Jeremy Cunnington

The trackway has presented the potential for exploring a time slice of activity in this routeway area spanning the lifetime of occupation on the castle. As one descends here below the Tudor trackway, pottery recovered here stretches back from the glazed Tudor period wares through the earlier sandy wares to the shell-tempered wares dating back to the origins of the castle estate which is estimated as the mid-11th century. Small finds have also appeared: a 2cm gilded fastening or item of jewellery at some of the lowest levels in the sequence, together with a fragment of robust blue ‘vessel’ glass.

All is accompanied by hundreds of oysters within the demolition levels and hundreds of animal bones distributed through almost all contexts. Post-excavation analysis promises to define dating with greater precision.

Trench 2 from earlier in the dig, copyright Simon Coxall

Trench 2, while beyond the main evidence for structures, still betrays evidence for a concerted refashioning of the site roughly dated to the later 14th century. This coincides with historical evidence for the Neville family’s refashioning of the estate. An earlier surface cut into by ditches and pits associated with early phases of occupation, was across Trench 2 capped by a consistent capping layer of compacted sands and gravels, thus sealing the animal bone-rich contexts in such features. Approximately 1500 animal bones have been recovered across all contexts. It is intended this assemblage will be sent to a university as subject matter for a student’s zooarchaeological analysis.

The last of these ditches at the northern limits of the trench continues to descend deep into a ditch penetrating the sites’ original platform material. This continues to produce pottery including a large fragment of medieval mortarium and more animal bone some, of which will find themselves submitted for C14 analysis. These sealed dark humic contexts also lend themselves as key areas of environmental sampling which is being done by Oxford Archaeology East.

As with all sites, as trenches begin to be filled in, the work has only just begun.

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Clavering Castle Excavation Dig Diary: End of Week 2

As we head in to the last week of digging here’s what the team has found so far at the end of week two.

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Annotated aerial view of trench one, copyright Simon Coxall

Trench 1

As previously mentioned, trench 1 was sited to explore the suspected ‘gatehouse’ entrance to the site as indicated by earlier resistivity survey. This reveals evidence throughout for the concerted demolition of the site; activity which with the almost total absence of artefacts dating beyond the 16th century appears to have been undertaken shortly after its seizure by the Crown with the demise of Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury in 1541.

Ephemeral evidence for residual structural foundations (flint, brick, roof tile, clunch, daub etc) have been found to frame a surviving entrance routeway of beaten chalk sand/mortar which is approximately 6m in width and is associated with ceramic dating evidence.

Sampling of this routeway context reveals it as the last of a number of trackways using it appears the same entrance point to the estate and excavation continues to explore these earlier routeway surfaces and ‘associated’ ditches. All such evidence is consistent with the geophysical findings.

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Annotated aerial shot of trench two, copyright Simon Coxall

Trench 2

The historical evidence suggests in the mid-14th century the castle site went through a major refurbishment and between 1350 and 1550 it is likely to have been refurbished again and again so we wanted to put a trench where it wasn’t disturbed by those later efforts and this has proven its value in terms of that there is no evidence of any structures. The ditch at far end is probably 15th/16th century and full of Tudor demolition material. At south end is full of sand brought here as has a lot of material to level this part of the site. The part with the darker dirt is a huge ditch which just keeps going. It is 14th century material coming out of this ditch, although not a huge amount and it is mainly stacks of animal bones but some interesting bits of pot. Like the other ditch it is likely to be amongst the earliest features this far on this site.

Imagine a landscape which doesn’t have this gatehouse, and these ditches may well have been there before that. The object here is to find the oldest bone at the lowest level because one of the dating opportunities is to date the animal bone through carbon dating, but pottery is less precise for dating.

With only one week to go of the excavation the key focus is to continue to get down to the lowest possible level allowed of 1.2 metres with the aim of finding suitable material to use to try and date the earliest period of use of the site.

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Clavering Castle Dig Diary Day Nine – Going Deeper

Since the last update, the excavators continue to make progress although the finds have not been numerous.

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Drone image of trench one with annotations by Simon Coxall, copyright Simon Coxall

The first fragmentary cobble walls have appeared in trench one associated with the gatehouse structures on the east side. The emphasis there is on going down through the trackway to get to the lower levels / early period. The top layers are producing 15th/16th century pottery and underlying levels coarser sandy wares going back to the 14th / 15th century. Plenty of depth still to go. Widespread faunal remains in trench one.

Drone image of trench two with annotations by Simon Coxall, copyright Simon Coxall

Trench two is now extended to 6x2m shows below demolition levels two sizeable ditches and perhaps a pit cutting same. One holds demolition period material, the pot and other ditch are larger features and in terms of alignment appear to have no relation to the structures suggested by the geophysics. These appear deeply cut and hold almost exclusively faunal remains in a dark humic fill. The lower levels of these features may offer environmental and carbon-dating opportunities. The same area suggests some evidence for smithing slag.

The emphasis in both trenches now is going deeper into identified contexts to our 1.2m maximum.

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Clavering Castle Excavation: Day Five Update

Excavation director Simon Coxall gives an update of what happened on Friday 6 June.

In Trench 1 the trackway limits were established and exploration of its junction with the structural foundations to the west has been a little problematic at first. The foundations appear to consist of a dense concretion of sand gravels and small sub-angular flint cobbles rather than the larger flint cobbles that were anticipated. Such larger cobbles as survive are redeposited remnants of the former walls perhaps not though worthy to recover from the demolition.

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There is nearby corroboration of this foundation method from records of when Saffron Walden castle was explored.

‘…Archaeological excavation and monitoring was carried out prior to and during repair work to the retaining wall between the north side of Saffron Walden Castle and the rear of 30 Castle Street. A 1m-wide trench, stepped for safety, was excavated through the deposits to the south of the wall. Natural chalk was exposed in the base of the trench at a depth of c. 2m below the ground surface. This was sealed by buried medieval topsoil upon which were a series of compacted sand, flint and chalk deposits interpreted as the foundations of the mid-14th century inner bailey curtain wall. The foundations were found to extend along the length of the retaining wall during monitoring. ‘

The depth of these foundations has still to be established. Both the foundation and trackway are to be sampled for evidence of construction methods and perhaps phased construction.

Discovery of the ditch on Wednesday at first thought to be a beam slot, courtesy of Jacky Cooper

In Trench 2 the beam slot found on Wednesday has morphed into a ditch with dark humic fill. At its uppermost levels this contained two sherds of medieval pottery Sandy ware probably for the same vessel estimated as being 14th century. This is being cleaned/defined prior to full excavation of its fill. The ditch encountered at the southern extent of Trench 2 has been excavated and found to contain in the main demolition materials in its upper levels with a medieval jug handle (?) present in the lower fills as presented in the trench’s eastern balk.

The trench has shown the propensity for features hitherto not recorded by geophysics and will be explored further.

A sketch with approximate trench locations is the featured image and courtesy of Simon. The trenches are being georeferenced in with Oxford Archaeology East assistance on Monday. There’s a decision to be made today (Saturday) regarding extension of either trench to achieve the current excavation limit of 2 x c.2m trenches.

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