Daw's Castle (or ''Dart's Castle'' or ''Dane's Castle'') is a sea cliff

hillfort A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roma ...

just west of

Watchet Watchet is a harbour town, civil parish and electoral ward in the county of Somerset, England, with a population in 2011 of 3,785. It is situated west of Bridgwater, north-west of Taunton, and east of Minehead. The town lies at the mouth of ...

, a harbour town in

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

, England. It 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 ...

. The name comes from Thomas Dawe, who owned ''castell'' field in 1537. The fort is situated on an east-west cliff about above the sea, on a tapering spur of land bounded by the

Washford River The Washford River rises at near Luxborough in the Brendon Hills and flows through Somerset to the Bristol Channel at Watchet. The river valley passes through the Cleeve Hill Site of Special Scientific Interest, and close to Cleeve Abbey ...

to the south, as it flows to the sea at Watchet, about 1 km east. The ramparts of the fort would have formed a semicircle backing on to the sheer cliffs, but

coastal erosion Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts of storms. The landward ...

has reduced the size of the enclosure, and later destruction by farming, limekilns, and the B3191 road, have left only about of ramparts visible today. The fort may be of

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

origin, but was rebuilt and fortified as a ''

burh A burh () or burg was an Old English fortification or fortified settlement. In the 9th century, raids and invasions by Vikings prompted Alfred the Great to develop a network of burhs and roads to use against such attackers. Some were new constru ...

'' by

King Alfred Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bot ...

, as part of his defense against

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

raids from the

Bristol Channel The Bristol Channel ( cy, Môr Hafren, literal translation: "Severn Sea") is a major inlet in the island of Great Britain, separating South Wales from Devon and Somerset in South West England. It extends from the lower estuary of the River Seve ...

around 878 AD. It would have been one of a chain of forts and coastal lookout posts, connected by the ''

Herepath A herepath or herewag is a military road (literally, an army path) in England, typically dating from the ninth century AD. This was a time of war between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of southern England and Viking invaders from Denmark. The Engli ...

'', or ''military road'', which allowed Alfred to move his army along the coast, covering Viking movements at sea. Excavations have revealed a first phase of defence with a mortared wall fronting an earth bank from this period. Then a second phase of defence in late 9th or early 10th centuries, also against

invaders. In the

Burghal Hidage The Burghal Hidage () is an Anglo-Saxon document providing a list of over thirty fortified places (burhs), the majority being in the ancient Kingdom of Wessex, and the taxes (recorded as numbers of hides) assigned for their maintenance.Hill/ Rumb ...

of 919, nearby

is attributed 513 hides, which converts to a defensive perimeter of 645 m. It is not clear whether this refers to the walls of the town, or of Daw's Castle high on the cliff above. The ''

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alf ...

'' records a Viking raid on Watchet in 914, but they were defeated ''with great slaughter ... so that few of them came away, except those only who swam out to the ships''.''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'
902-24 AD
/ref> There was a plundering raid in 987, and another in 997, with ''much evil wrought in burning and manslaughter''.''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'

/ref> A Saxon mint was established at Watchet in 1035, and this was probably within the fort, rather than in the town below.

References

* Somerset Historic Environment Record *
Daw's Castle
(Site record 34164) *
Daw's Castle Saxon Burh
(Site record 34162) *
Daw's Castle Excavation 1982
(Site record 15181) *
Daw's Castle Saxon Mint
(Site record 34209)

See also

References

Further reading