Red Castle is a ringwork castle, built on the west side of the town of Thetford, probably in the late 11th century. It was occupied for a relatively short period, and only earthworks now remain.
History
The castle was located on the west side of Thetford, a prosperous Anglo-Saxon town with a population of around 4,500, overlooking a ford across the Little Ouse River. Thetford was an important international trading hub and a centre of pottery production. Up until the end of the 11th century, the town was primarily based on the west side of the Little Ouse and River Thet, protected by a 10th-century Anglo-Saxon burh defences, which took the form of a bank and ditch. The ecclesiastical centre of St Peter’s lay on the far side of the two rivers.
It is uncertain exactly when Red Castle was built. It was probably constructed by William de Warenne, the Earl of Surrey following the Norman invasion of 1066. If this is correct, Red Castle was then used up until the construction of the much larger Thetford Castle. Thetford Castle was probably established by Roger Bigod, the Earl of Norfolk, around 1100, and lay on the east side of the river, guarding the ford of the Icknield Way. Around this time, the town of Thetford migrated to the east side of the river, and the Red Castle site would have become far less important.
Alternatively, Thetford Castle may have been the first castle to be constructed in the town. In this case, Red Castle might have been built in the 1140s, during the civil known as the Anarchy. The most likely builder would then be Earl Warenne, the Earl of Surrey, who held the lands to the south of the river.
The fortification was a ringwork design and took advantage of the existing town defences. Its earthworks enclosed and buried the local church of St Martin’s and part of its cemetery. The ramparts were 120 m across, and were protected by a 3 m deep ditch and a 2 m high bank, topped by a timber palisade, with a raised mound in the north-west corner. There appears to have been a semicircular bailey measuring, 27 m across, to the east of the ringwork, protected by enclosed by a ditch about 1.5 m deep and 4.3 m wide.
The castle appears to have been abandoned after the early 12th century. Parts of the north side of the earthworks were later destroyed to create a road, and some parts of the remaining castle were damaged by quarrying for sand. The remains of the bailey were destroyed by later a house building project.
The antiquarian Thomas Martin carried out archaeological investigations in the mid-18th century, uncovering parts of the church. Further professional digs were carried out between 1957-58, and 1988-89. In the 21st century, the castle is protected under UK law as a Scheduled Monument.
Bibliography
- Blair, John. (2018) Building Anglo-Saxon England. Princeton University Press: Princeton, US.
- Dunmore, Stephen and Robert Carr. (1976) The Late Saxon town of Thetford, Norfolk. East Anglian Archaeology 4. Norfolk Archaeological Unit: Norfolk, UK.
- Rogerson, Andrew and Carolyn Dallas. (1984) Excavations in Thetford 1948–59 and 1973–80. East Anglian Archaeology 22. Norfolk Archaeological Unit: Norfolk, UK.
Attribution
The text of this page is licensed under under CC BY-NC 2.0.