Ringwork and bailey known as Bishop Bonner’s Palace, Orsett

Summary

The earthwork and buried remains of a medieval ringwork and bailey.

Reasons for Designation

The ringwork and bailey known as Bishop Bonner’s Palace, Orsett, is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Rarity: with perhaps only 200 examples of ringworks identified nationally, it is a rare surviving example;

* Survival: as a substantial and well preserved earthwork with relatively undisturbed buried remains;

* Potential: there is good potential for the survival of significant deposits which will provide information to enhance our knowledge and understanding of the site and the wider landscape in which it functioned;

* Documentation: the existence of documentary evidence enhances our understanding and significance of the site;

* Diversity: the ringwork and bailey earthworks, the surrounding moat, and the buried remains of the medieval building provide a rich diversity of features which collectively have the potential to enhance our understanding of the wider evolution of the site;

* Group value: for the strong spatial group value that the ringwork and bailey holds with the C16 farmhouse (listed Grade II) to the south. Together they represent the changing phases and status of the site from medieval to early modern society.

History

Ringworks are medieval fortifications built and occupied from the late Anglo-Saxon period to the later C12. They comprised a small, defended area containing buildings which was surrounded or partly surrounded by a substantial ditch and a bank surmounted by a timber palisade or, rarely, a stone wall. Occasionally a more lightly defended embanked enclosure, the bailey, adjoined the ringwork. Ringworks acted as strongholds for military operations and in some cases as defended aristocratic or manorial settlements. They are rare nationally with only 200 recorded examples and less than 60 with baileys. As such, and as one of a limited number and very restricted range of Anglo-Saxon and Norman fortifications, ringworks are of particular significance to our understanding of the period.

Since the C19, the ringwork at Orsett has been thought to be the main site of the manor, which was listed in the Domesday Book as belonging to the Bishop of London before and after the Norman Conquest. The site’s identification as a bishop’s palace may be unfounded, but there is little doubt that it stood within and probably at the centre of one of the London bishopric’s most valuable Essex manors for over six centuries until the demise of Bishop Bonner in the reign of Elizabeth. It had 13 hides of land, woodland for 1,000 pigs, and was valued at £35 during Edward the Confessor’s reign. As a tenant-in-chief, the bishop held the fief directly from the king by military service, possibly explaining the use of a defensive ringwork design, for the manorial centre at Orsett. In 1290, Edward I confirmed the bishop’s legal rights over Orsett and nearby manors.

Bishop Bonner, known for his religious stance during the Tudor period, was eventually imprisoned and died in 1568 becoming the last bishop to own the site. Orsett was taken by the Crown and later granted to Francis Downes in 1614. By 1746, it passed to Richard Baker who bought the manor and built a new hall (now known as Orsett Hall) east of the village, which his son expanded between 1750 and 1789.

The 1777 map of Essex by John Chapman and Peter André shows Baker’s new hall (Orsett Hall) to the east of the village and Old Hall Farm just south of the ringwork. Old Hall Farm’s main building, which dates to the late C15 or early C16, may have been the last manor house before the move to the new hall, possibly replacing earlier buildings within the ringwork.

The ringwork and bailey at Orsett, which survives as an earthwork, was first scheduled under the name ‘Bishop Bonner’s Palace’ in 1924. The site has not been excavated but the interior is likely to contain buried remains of buildings and archaeological deposits associated with the site. The first aerial photography (AP) was taken in 1944 and shows the earthworks surviving well. A drone lidar survey conducted in 2024 clearly demonstrates its continued survival.

Details

PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS: the medieval ringwork and bailey is located to the north-west of the village of Orsett. The south-east boundary is a residential area with farmland and woodland on the remaining sides. The landscape is largely level, with a slight inclination draining north-north-west toward Orsett Fen, 2km distant. The monument includes a circular earthwork with a small rectangular enclosure, known as a bailey, both of which are defined by substantial ditches and is aligned on a south-west to north-east axis.

DESCRIPTION: the medieval ringwork and bailey are clearly visible on AP and lidar as an earthwork. It consists of a circular island, approximately 62m in diameter, surrounded by a 10m-wide ditch measuring up to 1.5m in depth, flanked to the north-east by a small rectangular annexe, or bailey, contained by connected ditches of similar proportions. The surface of the ringwork is mostly flat but sits about 1m higher than the land to the south and 0.5m above the bailey.

The roughly rectangular bailey is formed by two ditches extending to the north-east from the ringwork. The width of the bailey from the ringwork varies between 55m to 62m, giving it a trapezoidal shape. The curved south-west side suggests it was built after the ringwork. A large bank runs along the outer north-east edge, about 10m wide at the base and 4m wide at the top forming a raised platform. There’s no clear entrance between the ringwork and bailey, though a slight rise in the ditch and erosion on the southern side may hint at one. These features are less distinct today than when mapped in 1923.

The bailey is unusually small and not very defensible, suggesting it may have been a garden for a high-status manor. The raised bank could have served as a viewing platform rather than a defensive feature. If the manor later moved to Old Hall Farm, the ringwork may have been used as a yard or garden, explaining the lack of an internal bank and the southern causeway.

The surrounding ditches were designed to hold water from local springs but are now only seasonally wet. Water drains through two channels, one from the bailey’s north corner and another from the ringwork’s southern edge.

The ringwork has no visible outer bank and is accessed by a shallow causeway to the south. This may have been the original entrance, but it more likely connected to the nearby Old Hall Farm (a late C15 or early C16 house, Grade II listed but not part of the scheduling).

A Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England survey noted in 1923 that fragments of building materials and foundations survived on the west side of the ringwork. When last inspected due to impenetrable scrub this survival could not be confirmed to be still in place however animal burrowing revealed tile and building material.

Valuable archaeological deposits will be preserved beneath the surface of the ringwork and the bailey and within the surrounding ditches. If analysed scientifically these will provide important archaeological and environmental information relating to the monument’s construction and use within the landscape in which it functioned.

EXTENT OF SCHEDULING: the area of protection is shown on the attached map and is designed to protect the full extent of the medieval ringwork and bailey. It includes a 5m buffer zone which is considered necessary for the support and preservation of the monument.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

TK 36

Legacy System:

RSM - OCN

Sources

Books and journals
Doubleday, AH, Page, W, The Victoria History of the County of Essex, (1903)
Morant, P, The History and Antiquities of the County of Essex, (1768), 222-223
King, D.J.C, Alcock, L., Ringworks of England and Wales in Chateau Gaillard, Vol. 3, (1969), 90-127
Ingle, C, Saunders, H, Aerial Archaeology in Essex: the role of the National Mapping Programme in interpreting the landscape. East Anglian Archaeology 136, (2011)

Websites
John Chapman and Peter Andre 1777 Map of Essex, accessed 21/10/2025 from https://map-of-essex.uk/
RCHME 1923 'Orsett', in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Essex, Volume 4, South, accessed 13 January 2025 from https://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/essex/vol4/pp102-107

Other
Medlycott M, 2019 Thurrock Scheduled Monuments: assessment of settings. Essex County Council for Thurrock Council
Drone lidar survey flown using a DJI Matrice with an L2 Zenmuse sensor. The results were processed in DJI Terra and Quick Terrain Modeller to produce digital terrain models at around 10cm resolution.

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