Horncastle Castle (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Horncastle.
In the historic county of Lincolnshire.
Modern Authority of Lincolnshire.
1974 county of Lincolnshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: TF258695
Latitude 53.20837° Longitude -0.11818°

Horncastle Castle has been described as a probable Fortified Manor House.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.
This is a Grade 1 listed building protected by law*.

Description

The castle was said to have been demolished in a charter of 1146 (Dugdale, Baronage I, 39; Registrum Antiquissimum of Lincoln I, p. 287.) This may be an error for Thorngate (in the same hands), but considerable remains of the Roman wall still survive there. ( _Arch. Jl. CXII, pp. 38-9). (Renn)

King writes Roman only. Horncastle is a river crossing, and was a major Saxon town, with a mint. The manor house is within the Roman fortified town. The strength of the C3 walls in C12 is debatable, but they were still up to 4yds high in the early C18. There must be a possibility of some form of C11 or C12 defensive structure here based on the Roman walls. It is clear that the 'castel' mentioned by Leland was the Roman town but Camden was writing about structure being razed in the C12. Is it possible that the Roman walls were in such good condition that they needed no improvement in the medieval period and there are therefore no obvious medieval defensive works? The Bishop of Carlisle had a residential manor here, although only from the C13. This manor house was in the north-west corner of the circuit of the Roman wall. Horncastle was held by the de Condet family in the C12 who certainly had a residence here, probably in the same place. Given their baronial status it is entirely possible their manor house was defensible, although there is nothing to suggest it was isolated from the rest of the town by either a stone wall or significant earthworks.

See also Thorngate.

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1005034, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number li44
National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1262720 , 1251668
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 43886 (medieval settlement).

Books
- Osborne, Mike, 2010, Defending Lincolnshire: A Military History from Conquest to Cold War (The History Press) p. 32
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 1 p. 265 (reject)
  Renn, D.F., 1973 (2 edn.), Norman Castles of Britain (London: John Baker) p. 206
  Harvey, Alfred, 1911, Castles and Walled Towns of England (London: Methuen and Co)
  Walter, J.C., 1908, A History of Horncastle from the earliest period to the present time (Horncastle: W.K. Morton and Sons) p. 11-12 online transcription
Periodical Articles
- Corder, P., 1955, 'The reorganization of the defences of Romano-British towns in the fourth century' The Archaeological Journal Vol. 112 p. 38-9 online copy
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- Dugdale, 1675, The Baronage of England Vol. 1 p. 39
  Foster, C.W. (ed), 1931, The ‘Registrum antiquissimum’ of the cathedral church of Lincoln (Hereford: Lincoln Record Society 27) Vol. 1 p. 287
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Camden, Wm, 1607, Britannia hypertext critical edition by Dana F. Sutton (2004)
  Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p. 304
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1910, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 5 p. 34, 35 online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- English Heritage, 2012, Heritage at Risk Register 2012 East Midlands (London: English Heritage) p. 39 online copy
  English Heritage, 2011, Heritage at Risk Register 2011 East Midlands (London: English Heritage) p. 36 online copy

Data >		County HER	Scheduling	Listing	I. O. E.
Maps >	OS getamap	Streetmap	Old-Maps	Where's the path
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	EarthTools
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	Flashearth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio