Bedford Castle motte and bailey

Summary

Bedford Castle motte including parts of the inner and outer baileys of the Norman castle.

Reasons for Designation

Bedford Castle motte and bailey is scheduled for the following principal reasons:

* Period: the Norman motte and bailey are highly representative of the medieval period;

* Survival: the motte is a good example of its type and survives well as a pronounced and clearly defined earthwork. A ditch surrounding the motte and associated bailey defences in the form of earthworks and ditches are proven by excavation to survive well;

* Potential: there is good evidence for the survival of significant archaeological deposits including structural remains, artefactual evidence, waterlogged organic material and a buried medieval land surface which, together have the potential to enhance our knowledge and understanding of the motte and bailey and the wider social and economic landscape in which it functioned;

* Diversity: for the broad diversity of surviving features including the motte, the inner and outer baileys, buried defensive ditches and earthworks, and foundations of medieval structures within the inner and outer baileys;

* Documentation: for the wealth of historical documentation recording the military history of the site throughout the medieval period, and archaeological documentation of the late C20 and early C21 which records multiple stages of archaeological investigation across the site.

History

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.

Bedford lies in the shallow valley of the River Great Ouse, and from the Middle Saxon period evidence appears for the beginnings of a settlement at ‘Beda’s ford’, a key river crossing point. The Middle Saxon core of Bedford developed on the north side of the river with an early street pattern (still recognisable) and was surrounded by a defensive ditch. In the C10 and C11, Bedford was important both as a trading centre, with coins minted in the town, and as the central burh of the shire. After 1066, Bedford became a stronghold of the new Norman regime and during the reign of William II, a motte and bailey castle was built in a strategic position on the north bank of the river and then rebuilt in stone. It was a classic Norman fortification of a mound, or motte, on which were wooden, later stone, defences, surrounded by an area of dwellings, armouries, stables and so on called the bailey. There were, in fact, two baileys, an inner bailey which probably would have contained the lord’s own hall, the chapel and other such domestic buildings, and, separated from it by a wall, an outer bailey. The motte then lay inside the inner bailey, giving three defensive rings to the whole structure. Ditches, at some point lined in stone, lay immediately outside each length of wall.
The earliest castle was built by Ralf de Tallebosc soon after the Norman Conquest of 1066 and comprised a large mound of earth with a wooden tower on top. In 1087 William the Conqueror granted the Barony of Bedford to Hugh de Beauchamp who may have enlarged the castle and rebuilt the wooden buildings in stone. In 1130 it was recorded that the castle had ‘a strong and unshakeable keep’. In 1137 King Stephen laid the castle under siege but it was recovered by De Beauchamp shortly afterwards. The castle was described at that time as ‘completely ramparted around with an immense earthen bank and ditch, girt about with a wall strong and high, strengthened with a strong and unshakeable keep’. The castle may have been besieged in the early 1150s as the Pipe Roll for 1157/8 records a payment of twenty marks to the King from the burgesses of Bedford who ‘were in the castle against the king’. The Pipe Roll for 1205 records 13/9 spent on repairs to the prison within the castle.

A Norman mercenary, Falkes de Breauté, a vassal of King John (1199-1216) captured Bedford Castle in 1215 and began to overhaul the defences for his brother William. Ralph de Coggeshall reported that he ‘strengthened and expanded the castle at great expense, fortifying it with towers and outworks and a variety of warlike machines. He pulled down to the foundations the great church of Saint Paul which from antiquity had stood next to the castle, and the Church of Saint Cuthbert, and with the stones of the churches he built towers, walls and outer walls, and surrounded it on all sides with deep paved ditches’. Following a failed revolt in 1223, de Breauté lost all his shrievalties and was ordered to give up Bedford Castle.

In 1224 Henry III and his army besieged Bedford Castle; the siege lasted for eight weeks and around 200 people were said to have been killed. Three assaults failed but a fourth breached the barbican (defended gateway), allowing the whole outer bailey to be captured. Next the wall near an old tower (the one nearest St Paul’s Church) was breached by mining; tunnels were dug beneath the wall and filled with faggots which were set alight, collapsing the tunnel and bringing down a section of the wall with it, causing the fall of the inner bailey. Finally the keep, the tower on the motte, was also undermined and the site surrendered. The siege is chronicled in the Chronicum Anglicanum by Ralph de Coggeshall, the Annales de Dunstaplia and royal letters. Close Rolls surviving in the National Archives detail royal commands for dismantling the castle’s defences, a process known as slighting; towers were levelled and ditches filled in. Walls were reduced significantly in height and by 1361 the site was described as ‘a void plot of old enclosed by walls’. There was little growth in the Medieval period and the town was largely contained within its Saxon framework, as can be seen from John Speed’s map of Bedford dated 1610 and Thomas Jefferys’ map of 1765.

And so it seems to have remained until Bedford began to expand eastward during the C19 when areas of the former baileys were redeveloped for housing. By the time of Reynold’s map of Bedford in 1841, there had been much development in the former bailey west of Castle Hill, between the river and Castle Lane. North of the castle mound, a hexagonal militia depot was constructed on a slight mound in 1804, and later became St Agnes Infant School, then a domestic kitchen, and later the hexagonal gallery of what is now the Higgins Arts Gallery and Museum. The Castle Brewery was founded by the Higgins family in the 1820s off Castle Lane, and the brewery icehouse, located in the castle mound, was constructed around this time. A social club known as the Castle Rooms was constructed at the north end of the site in the early 1840s, and over the years fulfilled many religious and cultural functions. The Higgins family built their family home, Castle Close House in 1846, north of the castle mound; from 1949 this building housed the Cecil Higgins Museum of the decorative arts. The 1884 town plan of Bedford shows the site in greater detail with a round bowling green on Castle Hill, and rectangular lawns laid out south of Castle Hill. In 1911 a rectangular-plan skating hall was constructed south-west of Castle Hill; the building was adapted for use as a public hall and later a cinema from 1929 and was demolished around 1980. A former garage and showroom at the east end of the building was adapted for use as a town museum in 1962 and demolished around 1990. In the 1970s the former Higgins and Sons Castle Brewery buildings were acquired for a new and permanent museum for the town and were opened to the public in 1981. The museum merged with the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery in 2005 and are now known as the Higgins Art Gallery and Museum.

Bedford Castle motte and bailey was scheduled on 30 April 1952 with the scheduled area being drawn tightly around only Castle Hill. Archaeological excavations of the castle mound and surrounding area were carried out between 1969 and 1973, with 44 evaluation trenches opened over 3 seasons, and results were published in the Bedfordshire Archaeological Journal (Vol 13, 1979). The scheduling was updated on 02 January 1992, and the scheduled area extended to include a wider area bounded to the north by Castle Road, to the east by Newnham Road, to the south by The Embankment, and to the west by Castle Lane and a car park. The line of the western defences of the outer bailey was located during archaeological investigation at the rear of 29-41 High Street (Steadman, 1999).

The archaeological park known as Castle Bailey Gardens, was excavated in 2007 as part of the nearby Castle Quay development in partnership with Bedford Borough Council. Prior to excavation the site had been a car park for almost 40 years. The archaeological excavations within the former inner bailey uncovered the foundations of a substantial multi-phased building interpreted as a medieval hall; the foundations were cleaned and retained in situ for permanent display. The excavations produced large numbers of domestic artefacts including kitchen, and table wares, as well as animal bone showing signs of butchering and bone working. Other finds that were recovered included, stone mangonel shot, a metal spear / arrow head, a bone ice-skate, a Viking coin, painted wall plaster, candle holders and spindle-whorls.

Details

PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS: The site comprises the motte and parts of the inner and outer baileys of the Norman castle on the north bank of the River Great Ouse. The former baileys lie at a height of between 26m and 28m AOD, with the land gently sloping away from the north end of the site to the river to the south. The motte is located in the south-eastern corner of the site and rises to a height of around 35m AOD. The underlying geology is formed by river-borne alluvium and gravels overlying limestone of the Great Oolite Group. The site is bounded to the north by Castle Road, to the east by Newnham Road, to the south by The Embankment, to the south-west by the Swan Hotel, and to the west and north-west by Castle Lane.

DESCRIPTION: The motte survives in the south-eastern corner of the site as an earthen mound measuring around 8m in height and 70m in diameter at the base with a flat top measuring around 50m in diameter. There are no visible remains of the castle that once stood on the mound. The foot of the motte was encircled by a ditch some 15m wide. Although partially infilled, the outer scarp of the ditch can still be observed to the north-east of the motte. A narrow section, excavated in 1972, revealed that the ditch was up to 4m deep, with a stone-faced revetment. The ditch was still partially open at the end of the C19 and is known from maps to have discharged into the river Ouse in the area to the south of the motte. Within the mound, a brick-lined icehouse was constructed in the mid-C19 for the neighbouring Higgins Brewery (now part of the Higgins Art Gallery and Museum). A masonry-lined path was cut into the north side of the mound, from where a brick-lined tunnel and steps lead to the brick-lined and vaulted icehouse, around 4m deep with a grilled drain at the bottom.

The motte was the central stronghold of the castle and was further fortified by an inner and an outer bailey, and defended by an earthen rampart and outer ditch. The ditch is infilled but its outer lip is considered to run along the edge of Newnham Road and then to turn westwards at the corner of Castle Lane where it lies beneath the road. Close to this corner is a mound, about 3m high, which is the surviving north-east angle of the rampart; the mound was partially excavated in 1970. The area to the north of the motte, measuring about 80m square, formed part of the outer bailey, and retains below-ground evidence of castle buildings. The northern half of the area lies beneath the buildings of the Higgins Art Gallery and Museum (listed Grade II) and the house at 31 Castle Lane. Documentary and topographical evidence shows that the bailey was originally rectangular, extending west from Newnham Road to the rear of the properties fronting the High Street and from the medieval foreshore at the Embankment to Ram Yard. This area has been heavily disturbed by later foundations and was also extensively excavated in the 1970s and 2000s. The excavations revealed Saxon and medieval timber and stone buildings, determined the construction sequence of parts of the defences and identified deposits relating to the final siege and destruction of the castle.

The archaeological park west of the motte, now known as Castle Bailey Gardens, occupies what was the north part of the inner bailey, and was bounded to the north by a curtain wall and the southern berm of the inner bailey moat. The park retains the exposed wall foundations of a rectangular-plan building, aligned east to west, which has been interpreted as a medieval hall. Archaeological investigation in 2007 concluded that the building was substantially remodelled and added to at various stages and appears to have measured over 48m in length. The western end of the hall was demolished and considerably extended, leading to an overall ground plan of two large hall-type buildings separated by a central smaller chamber. A building of similar size to the central chamber was added to the eastern end of the hall.

EXCLUSIONS: All standing buildings, an electricity substation, roads, paths, bollards, benches, bins, street lamps, electricity poles, fencing, signage, and planters are excluded from the scheduling but the ground beneath them is scheduled.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

20412

Legacy System:

RSM

Sources

Books and journals
Goddard, A R, The Victoria History of the County of Bedfordshire, (1904)
Blyth, T A, History of Bedford, (1868)
Farrar, C F, Old Bedford, (1926)
Goddard, A R, Siege of Bedford Castle, (1906)
Wadmore, B, The Earthworks of Bedfordshire, (1920)
Baker, D, Excavations in Bedford 1967-77: Bedford Castle in Bedfordshire Archaeological Journal, Vol. 13, (1979), 9-11

Websites
Bedford Borough Council, Virtual Library, 'Bedford Castle', accessed 08 February 2024 from https://virtual-library.culturalservices.net/webingres/bedfordshire/vlib/0.digitised_resources/bedford_digitisation_az_bedfordcastle.htm
Bedfordshire Archives, ‘Bedford Castle’, accessed 08 February 2024 from https://bedsarchives.bedford.gov.uk/CommunityHistories/Bedford/BedfordCastle.aspx
The Historic Environment Record for Bedfordshire, ‘Bedford Castle, HER No. 298’, accessed 08 February 2024 from https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?resourceID=1014&uid=MBD298

Other
Albion Archaeology, ‘Castle Quay, Castle Lane, Bedford: Assessment of Potential and Updated Project Design, Vol 1’ (2008)

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