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Clavering Castle: a ringwork with associated earthworks north of the church of St Mary and St Clement

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1011779
Date first listed:: 09-Aug-1923

User submitted image — Uploaded by Information Analysis This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1011779
Date first listed:: 09-Aug-1923
Date of most recent amendment:: 23-Sep-1992

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Essex
District:: Uttlesford (District Authority)
Parish:: Clavering
National Grid Reference:: TL 47004 31906

Reasons for Designation

Ringworks are medieval fortifications built and occupied from the late Anglo-Saxon period to the later 12th century. 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.

Clavering Castle and associated earthworks are well preserved and may be pre-Norman in date. The earthworks and buried features within the interior of the monument will retain archaeological and environmental information relating to the development and internal layout of the castle, the ecomony of its inhabitants and the landscape in which they lived.

Details

The monument includes Clavering Castle, a ringwork with associated earthworks, situated 50m north of the church of St Mary and St Clement on the southern bank of the River Stort. The ringwork survives as a rectangular enclosure 150m east-west by 100m north-south which is surrounded by a ditch 26m wide and 5m deep. The ditch remains partly waterfilled, particularly to the north and west. The interior of the enclosure, which is at the same level as the surrounding ground level, is undulating, indicating the presence of buried structural remains. The original entrance to the enclosure crosses the ditch at the south-eastern corner at the location of a more recent trackway. Immediately north of the northern enclosure ditch is a retaining bank 10m wide and c.2m high, associated with a series of earthen banks, channels and pond bays which have not been dated but are thought to be associated with a former mill. These earthworks extend for 200m west of the castle, along the banks of the River Stort. The site is identified as one of the castles to which the French party at Edward the Confessor's court fled in 1052. If so, Clavering Castle would be of pre-Conquest date. The footbridge on the north-west side of the monument is excluded from the scheduling but the ground beneath it is included.

MAP EXTRACT The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:: 20676
Legacy System:: RSM

Sources

Books and journals
The Victoria History of the County, (1903), 291-93
Other
SMR No. 113, SMR No. 113,

Legal

This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.