Menu
 
Portfolio
 
Terms of Use
 

Castle Acre

Castle Acre Castle was built by William de Warenne, the Earl of Surrey, in the manor of Acre during the 1070s. William was a Norman lord who had accompanied William the Conqueror in the conquest of England in 1066; he was rewarded with extensive estates across England. Acre was already an Anglo-Saxon estate center and at the time of the invasion was owned by a wealthy man called Toki, but he was quickly replaced by Frederick, a Flemish lord, and William’s brother-in-law. When Frederick died around 1070, William acquired control of the manor, which formed part of his massive land holdings across the region.

 

The castle was strategically located where the River Nar met the Peddars Way, an old Roman road, at the center of Warenne’s other estates in Norfolk, and may have been built on top of Toki’s former house. The castle had a motte-and-bailey design: its large outer and inner baileys were protected by earthworks and palisades, and a stone gatehouse was added to the inner bailey shortly afterward. In the center of the inner bailey was a grand double-hall built from stone, but this was not fortified and would have been more like a country house than a conventional Norman keep.

 

William gave St Mary’s, the former parish church which was now surrounded by the castle’s outer bailey, to the Cluniac order of monks, along with 110 hectares of farmland. By 1088 a handful of monks had arrived from Lewes, where William had also founded a Cluniac community, to settle at the castle. William’s son, the second Earl William de Warrene, gave the monks a more spacious area of land to the west of the castle, probably in 1090, where they built Castle Acre Priory; the construction took a long time, and the priory was not fully completed until the 1160s. Monastic sites like the priory would have given their founders, and their associated castles, considerable prestige

 

More posts..

Castle Rising

Castle Rising is a ruined medieval fortification in the village of Castle Rising, Norfolk, England. It was built soon after 1138 by William d’Aubigny II, who had risen through the ranks of the Anglo-Norman nobility to become the Earl of Arundel. With his new wealth,

Read More
Rochester Castle

Rochester Castle stands on the east bank of the River Medway in Rochester, Kent, South East England. The 12th-century keep or stone tower, which is the castle’s most prominent feature, is one of the best-preserved in England or France.   Castles were introduced to England

Read More
Wayland’s Smithy

Wayland’s Smithy is a chambered long barrow located near the village of Ashbury in the south-eastern English county of Oxfordshire. Probably constructed in the thirty-sixth century BC, during Britain’s Early Neolithic period, today it survives in a partially reconstructed state.   Wayland’s Smithy is along

Read More
Devil’s Quoits

  Devil’s Quoits Henge and Stone Circle – The site is believed to be from the Neolithic Period, between 4000 and 5000 years old, and is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. The henge is a major class II circle henge monument of the Late Neolithic date.

Read More
Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on pinterest
error: