Cainhoe Castle was an 11th-century

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

castle, located near the village of

Clophill Clophill is a village and civil parish clustered on the north bank of the River Flit, Bedfordshire, England. It is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as ''Clopelle''. "Clop" likely means 'tree-stump' in Old English. However, it also has cogn ...

, in the county of

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated Beds) is a ceremonial county in the East of England. The county has been administered by three unitary authorities, Borough of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Borough of Luton, since Bedfordshire County Council ...

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 ...

. Cainhoe Castle was a

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 ...

and triple bailey castle, built by

Nigel d'Aubigny Nigel d'Aubigny (''Neel d'Aubigny'' or ''Nigel de Albini'', died 1129), was a Norman Lord and English baron who was the son of Roger d'Aubigny and Amice or Avice de Mowbray. His paternal uncle William was lord of Aubigny, while his father was an ...

, a

Knight, sometime after the

Norman Invasion The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, Duchy of Brittany, Breton, County of Flanders, Flemish, and Kingdom of France, French troops, ...

(1066). It was not mentioned in the ''

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

'' of 1086; ''"Cainou: Nigel d'Aubigny; Thurstan from Avelina, Ralph Tailbois' wife. Mill."'' The d'Aubigny family, known for being deeply involved in the

crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were ...

, used the castle as the seat of the Barony of Cainhoe. The castle was to stay in the d'Aubigny family until the death of Simon d'Aubigny, who died without a male heir, in 1272. It then passed to the de Lacys and the Nortons, and then on to the Greys, Earls of Kent. The castle was occupied until the time of the Black Death (1348), when all the inhabitants died of the disease. The castle, and the small village that had built up around it, were discovered abandoned sometime later. By 1374 the castle was in ruins. The site was excavated in 1973, 1985 and 1986. Only earthworks remain. The site is a

Scheduled Monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...

References

Cainhoe Castle 1
*Fry, Plantagenet Somerset, ''The David & Charles Book of Castles'', David & Charles, 1980.

External links

English Heritage Monument No. 360008

Investigation History
Castles in Bedfordshire Scheduled monuments in Bedfordshire {{England-castle-stub

See also

References

External links