Gaddick Hill medieval motte and bailey castle and post-medieval manor house

Reasons for Designation

Motte and bailey castles are medieval fortifications introduced into Britain by the Normans. They comprised a large conical mound of earth or rubble, the motte, surmounted by a palisade and a stone or timber tower. In a majority of examples an embanked enclosure containing additional buildings, the bailey, adjoined the motte. Motte castles and motte-and-bailey castles acted as garrison forts during offensive military operations, as strongholds, and, in many cases, as aristocratic residences and as centres of local or royal administration. Built in towns, villages and open countryside, motte and bailey castles generally occupied strategic positions dominating their immediate locality and, as a result, are the most visually impressive monuments of the early post-Conquest period surviving in the modern landscape. Over 600 motte castles or motte-and-bailey castles are recorded nationally, with examples known from most regions. As one of a restricted range of recognised early post-Conquest monuments, they are particularly important for the study of Norman Britain and the development of the feudal system. Although many were occupied for only a short period of time, motte castles continued to be built and occupied from the 11th to the 13th centuries, after which they were superseded by other types of castle.

Gaddick Hill motte and bailey castle is a well-preserved example which retained its manorial status into the post-medieval period when a manor house was built in the bailey. In addition to the medieval keep, the remains of both medieval and post-medieval buildings and structures will survive as buried features within the bailey and will include domestic and ancillary buildings of both periods in addition to the garrison buildings of the earlier castle.

Details

The monument includes the motte or castle mound of Gaddick Hill motte and bailey castle and the surrounding bailey. Within the bailey are included the buried remains of the manor house which superseded the castle. The motte is a steep-sided conical mound with an oval cross-section. It is 14m high from the bottom of the surrounding ditch and the flat top is 12m by 7m. The ditch is 8m wide and currently 2m deep. Near the top of the motte, on the east side, a terrace has been cut out and this has been interpreted as the landing for a stair up the side of the motte or a stage for the mechanism of a drawbridge. The motte would have been surmounted by a wooden keep which, in the later Middle Ages, may have been rebuilt in stone. It stands at the north-east corner of an oval bailey which measures 150m from east to west and 100m from north to south. The bailey was enclosed by a low rampart and ditch which, together, measure c.10m wide and may have been surmounted by a palisade. The rampart and ditch survive only on the north side but, on the west side, their line has been followed by later field boundaries. It is not yet known when the castle went out of use but records indicate that, in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century, the manor was under the same lordship as nearby Laxton. It is unlikely that the castle was still occupied at this time and a late medieval manor house may have been built in the bailey. Later records indicate that a house was built in the post-medieval period and lay somewhere between the motte and the later eighteenth century farmhouse. A drain believed to be post-medieval or earlier is also indicated, running southwards from the motte ditch and passing underneath the farmhouse. Excluded from the scheduling is all boundary fencing, the surfaces of the farmyard and track, and the buildings and other structures of Manor Farm, although the ground beneath these features is included.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract. It includes a 2 metre boundary around the archaeological features, considered to be essential for the monument's support and preservation.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

13396

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
The Victoria History of the County of Nottinghamshire: Volume I, (1906), 306

Other
Re drain and map showing PM house, Mr G Banks (owner of Manor Farm), (1992)

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