Bledisloe Tump was a castle in the village of
Awre
Awre () is a village, civil parish and electoral ward in the Forest of Dean District of Gloucestershire, England, near the River Severn.
Both the parish and the electoral ward include Blakeney, Etloe, Gatcombe, Viney Hill, and Two Bridges. ...
in
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean.
The county town is the city of Gl ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
.
History
The first castle on the site was built in the 11th or early 12th century and was a simple
timber
Lumber is wood that has been processed into dimensional lumber, including beams and planks or boards, a stage in the process of wood production. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing (floors, wall panels, wi ...
structure.
[National Monuments Office website]
, accessed 19 December 2010. The site was chosen because it occupied a natural high point overlooking the
River Severn
, name_etymology =
, image = SevernFromCastleCB.JPG
, image_size = 288
, image_caption = The river seen from Shrewsbury Castle
, map = RiverSevernMap.jpg
, map_size = 288
, map_c ...
.
[Steane, p.26.] A later mound, 60 ft wide and 7 ft high was also constructed on the site, and it is suspected that this may have been an unfinished
motte
A motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade. Relatively easy to ...
.
[ It is possible that this was built during the period of ]the Anarchy
The Anarchy was a civil war in England and Normandy between 1138 and 1153, which resulted in a widespread breakdown in law and order. The conflict was a war of succession precipitated by the accidental death of William Adelin, the only legiti ...
in the 12th century, and one theory is that the castle was destroyed by Henry II after the conflict as part of a wider programme of castle denigration in Gloucestershire during the 1150s.[Amt, p.44.]
The site was later used for meetings of the local Hundred
100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101.
In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...
of Bledisloe, and another theory for the creation of the mound is that it was specifically made to support these meetings.
See also
* Castles in Great Britain and Ireland
Castles have played an important military, economic and social role in Great Britain and Ireland since their introduction following the Norman invasion of England in 1066. Although a small number of castles had been built in England in the 10 ...
* List of castles in England
This list of castles in England is not a list of every building and site that has "castle" as part of its name, nor does it list only buildings that conform to a strict definition of a castle as a medieval fortified residence. It is not a li ...
References
Bibliography
*Amt, Emilie. (1993)
The Accession of Henry II in England: royal government restored, 1149-1159.
' Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. .
*Steane, John M. (1985)
The Archaeology of Medieval England and Wales, Volume 1985, Part 2.
' Beckenhem, UK: Croom Helm. .
{{coord, 51, 46, 16, N, 2, 27, 36, W, scale:10000, display=title
Castles in Gloucestershire
Awre