A castle is a fortified structure built by monarchs and nobility, serving as a residence and a stronghold. Strategically located to control key territories, castles were vital in medieval military and political landscapes.
Castles also indicated status and displayed their owners’ wealth and power. While ruined castles can look bleak and inhospitable today, many would have been richly furnished and comfortable, providing rooms to host guests.
Castles in England are typically considered a Norman innovation, built after the Conquest in 1066. However, dating their construction can be difficult due to the lack of records and the evolution of castle sites over the centuries.
Based on archaeological evidence, here are some of the oldest known castles in England.
Ewyas Harold Castle, Herefordshire
Castles are usually considered a product of the Norman Conquest of 1066, but a small number may have been built just before.
3 castles are said to have been built in Herefordshire by French associates of King Edward the Confessor (ruled 1042 to 1066), usually identified as Ewyas Harold Castle, Richard’s Castle, and Hereford Castle.
Ewyas Harold Castle and Richard’s Castle are mentioned in the Domesday Book, which suggests they were built before 1066.
Of these, Ewyas Harold (which is on private land) is traditionally considered the earliest, as one of many medieval defensive sites along the Golden Valley and adjacent Marches valleys.
Most were built before the Norman Conquest of Wales in 1295, although some sites continued in use until the 16th century.
Unfortunately, we can’t know for sure whether any of the Herefordshire castles are actually pre-Conquest or in which order they might have been built.
Pevensey Castle, East Sussex
The first castle built after the Norman Conquest of 1066 is traditionally said to have been Pevensey Castle in East Sussex, adjacent to the beach where the Norman ships are thought to have landed in England.
Here, William the Conqueror’s army made use of a Roman fortification on the clifftop, the outer walls of which were still standing. There is no evidence of what they constructed at the castle, but they may have built a wooden tower or other temporary structures.
Pevensey was later rebuilt in stone. The remains visible today date to the 13th and 14th centuries, and parts of the Roman outer walls are still in situ.
Hastings Castle, East Sussex
Alongside Pevensey, the other 2 castles said to have been built immediately following William the Conqueror’s conquest are Hastings Castle and Dover Castle.
The Bayeux Tapestry illustrates William at Hastings bringing timber for castle construction across the channel as part of the conquest and constructing a small mound (motte) with a timber tower.
Like Pevensey Castle, the original castle at Hastings was probably a temporary wooden structure, and it may not even have been on the site of the later castle we see today.
Shortly after it was built, William defeated King Harold in the Battle of Hastings, one of the pivotal battles in English history.
Following his triumph, the Norman king commanded the transformation of Hastings Castle into a fully fortified stone structure. The ruins still stand today.
Dover Castle, Kent
Dover Castle in Kent is the third of the castles to be built by William the Conqueror as part of his initial campaign.
The cliffs of Dover have long been a favoured location for constructing strongholds, with fortifications dating back to the Iron Age. The remnants of a Roman lighthouse and an Anglo-Saxon fort remain visible within the castle’s walls.
Some suggest that the Anglo-Saxon structures on the site should be considered another pre-Conquest castle, like those in Herefordshire.
While later changes make this hard to prove, it shows the continuity these defended sites had in use before and after 1066.
The first version of Dover Castle was built in the 11th century by William the Conqueror, likely as a motte-and-bailey structure, soon after his victory at the Battle of Hastings.
However, it was King Henry II who transformed Dover Castle into the iconic stone fortress that stands today.
Castles after the coronation of William I
Once William the Conqueror had taken the throne in 1066, castles began to be constructed across the length and breadth of England to establish the Normans as the ruling power.
The exact sequence in which they were constructed is unknown, and they would have been under construction simultaneously, but many were probably built between 1066 and the early 1070s.
Sites known to have been under construction at this date include Old Sarum, Oxford, Warwick, Shrewsbury, Chester, Lincoln and Cambridge.
There are some notable castles from William I’s reign that have survived, including the following sites.
The White Tower, London
Perhaps the most famous of William the Conqueror’s surviving works is the White Tower, now part of the Tower of London.
Although altered in later centuries, late 11th-century fabric still survives in the tower’s undercroft and the Chapel of St John the Evangelist.
The Tower’s name suggests that it was initially rendered and painted white, something that was originally a feature of many castles.
Rochester Castle, Kent
Tower-keep castles were built throughout the medieval period, from immediately after the Norman Conquest to the 15th century.
They provided protected residences for the castle occupants, but some could be elaborate and comfortable structures with multiple large rooms for hosting guests.
Rochester Castle was one of the first Norman castles to be fortified in stone and has the distinction of being the tallest tower keep in England. Its construction can be dated to between 1066 and 1088.
Rochester Castle has survived largely in its original form. Although some features have been lost over time, it still dominates the town, cathedral, and river crossing it was built to defend.
Windsor Castle, Berkshire
Windsor Castle is the largest castle in England. It also holds the distinction of being the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world.
For over 900 years, it has served as a residence for the English and British Royal Family.
Construction of Windsor Castle began in the 1070s under the orders of William I. Its strategic purpose was to guard the western approach to London.
Over the centuries, numerous monarchs have enhanced and expanded the castle. Notably, in the 1170s, Henry II reconstructed much of the castle in stone.
Berkhamsted Castle, Hertfordshire
Berkhamsted Castle, an 11th-century Norman stronghold in Hertfordshire, may have been another site developed immediately after the Norman Conquest.
The site was strategically positioned on the route between London and the Midlands.
Originally, it was probably built as a timber structure by William the Conqueror’s half-brother, Robert of Mortain. Its exact date of construction is unclear as there are no surviving records. Most of the surviving fabric dates to the 12th and 13th centuries.
Some claim Berkhamsted to be the oldest castle in England, but while it may have late 11th-century origins, it’s probably slightly later than those established during William’s initial campaign on the south coast.
Clifford’s Tower and Baile Hill, York
Clifford’s Tower is a well-known landmark in the city of York, and the motte on which the later tower stands is probably a surviving remnant of a castle built by William I between 1068 and 1069.
This was part of a large motte and bailey castle, which became one of the key administrative sites in the north of England in the later Middle Ages.
Later, it became the site of York’s prison and law courts, and the courts and some of the prison buildings still stand within the former bailey.
Less well known is another York motte and bailey castle at Baile Hill, just the other side of the River Ouse. Initially constructed between 1068 and 1069, this is now incorporated into the later tower walls, but the mound is still visible.
The excavation found traces of timber structures on the top of the motte, which may have been from the 12th century.
These twin mottes at Clifford’s Tower and Baile Hill would have flanked the River Ouse and helped to control the city and the river. These may have been the first castles built in the north of England.
Richmond Castle, North Yorkshire
Although the exact date remains uncertain, Richmond Castle was likely founded in the 1070s by Count Alan Rufus, also known as ‘the Red’ of Penthièvre.
William the Conqueror granted him the land in recognition of his service during the Battle of Hastings.
Though fortified throughout the Norman period, the castle saw little use after the 14th century and gradually fell into disrepair.
Despite this, Richmond Castle preserves more 11th-century architecture than any other castle in England.
And finally, the Marlborough Mound, Wiltshire
While the technical definition of a castle means it relates to the medieval period, the idea of defended sites was nothing new.
From iron-age hillforts and Roman fortifications to defensive burghs built by the Anglo-Saxons, England was already served by networks of sites that had earlier defences on them when the Normans came along in the 11th century.
Some castle builders reused pre-existing man-made features, quite often hill forts. The earliest such feature known to have been reused as a castle is the Marlborough Mound in Wiltshire, which was already several thousand years old when it was adapted to form a castle motte in the 11th century.
Recent archaeological work dates it to the Neolithic period, built around 2400 BC. This makes it a similar date to the nearby Silbury Hill, the famous Neolithic site near Avebury and the largest artificial mound in Europe.
Marlborough Mound is not accessible to the public.
Other examples, such as Skipsea Castle in South Yorkshire, have been identified as being built on a possible Iron Age enclosure; other castles, including Scarborough and Dover, reused Roman sites.
None of these are as old as the Marlborough Mound, however, which might make it the oldest man-made site with a castle on it in England, even if it wasn’t originally a castle!
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