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Gloucester Castles

In the civil parish of Gloucester.
In the historic county of Gloucestershire.
Modern Authority of Gloucestershire.
1974 county of Gloucestershire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SO82751855
Latitude 51.86508° Longitude -2.25071°

Gloucester Castles has been described as a certain Timber Castle, and also as a certain Masonry Castle.

There are no visible remains.
Description

Castle documented in Domesday, where it is recorded that 16 houses were demolished to make room for it. The removal of a further 8 houses before 1100 probably marks the building of the castellum. It became a Royal Castle in 1155 and records of its maintenance occur regularly until the reign of Edward IV. Parts were used as a gaol until 1791 when it was demolished to make way for a new prison. (PastScape)
(SO 82751855) The keep or great tower of Gloucester Castle must have been erected by Domesday, where it is recorded that 16 houses were demolished to make room for it. The removal of a further 8 houses before 1100 probably marks the building of the castellum (Fullbrook Leggatt 1952).
It became a Royal Castle in 1155 and records of its maintenance occur regularly until the reign of Edward IV. After that the castle appears to have been neglected and no vestige of it now remains (HKW).
(SO 82791856) A square building shown on Hall and Pinnell's Map of 1780 probably represents a surviving part of the castle, possibly the keep, which was used as a gaol until 1791 when it was demolished to make way for a new prison (Lobel).
The original timber and earthwork castle lay slightly to the east of the later castle, between modern Barbican Road and Ladybellegate Street. The later castle can be reconstructed from documentary evidence and consisted of a great keep, a stout polygonal curtain wall and entrance gateway on the East side (Heighway 1985).
In 1990, three trenches were excavated on the site of the Magistrates Court, and locate the northern ditch of the Norman motte. A geophysical survey showed the motte ditch to be 50m in internal diameter. The bailey, to the east of the motte, was rectangular, being 111m x 90m, and closely followed the line of the Roman insulae. The ditches were about 6-8m wide (Aktin 1991). (PastScape)

May have been the site of an earlier Saxon stronghold (Baker and Holt 2004)

Gloucester is sometimes, with justification, considered as having two castles. The first, built soon after the Conquest was a timber and earthwork castle, built in the SW corner of the Roman walled town, using the surviving Roman wall, probably originally just as simple ditched enclosure but with a motte soon constructed over the Roman wall. The second, a stone castle, was built outside the Roman town wall, (This new castle is dated from early C12 by the VCH but otherwise dated from early C13), on an adjacent site west of the old castle. The old castle site was kept within the outer defences of the new castle but it seems most unlikely that any of the timber building remained in use.
Links to mapping and other online resources
Data >
PastScape                
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Sources of information, references and further reading

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I do not receive any income from this site and I fund it myself. The information within this site is provided freely by me for educational purposes only.
The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.
Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.
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This record last updated on Friday, May 3, 2013
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