Castle Acre Castle

TF 8115 11/12

CASTLE ACRE PYE'S LANE (south side) Castle Acre Castle

I

Castle containing earlier unfortified house. C11 house converted into keep mid C12, outer ward c.1200 and C13. Flint and clunch rubble, some stone dressings. Roofless. Built by the first de Warrene Earls of Surrey (obit 1087) father of founder of Castle Acre Priory (q.v.), extinct in heirs male 1147. Abandoned in C14. Post-Conquest country house or domus defensabilis possibly a two-storey hall, converted into rectangular keep early to mid C12 excavated 1972-1977. Curtain wall in place of former wooden palisade, clasping buttress piers survive on exterior west and north side. Lower wall fortified c.1200, with surviving sections of wall at east and south. To west base of south abutment of gateway of C13, possibly contemporary with north Bailey Gate (q.v.) of Castle Acre. Formerly thought to be a motte and bailey castle of one build of late C11. Scheduled Ancient monument County Number 140. See J.G. Coad and A.D.F. Streeten "Excavations at Castle Acre, Castle Acre, Norfolk 1972-1977 : Country house and castle of the Norman Earls of Surrey" Archaeo- logical Journal CXXXIX (1982), pp. 138-301. In care of HBMC.

Listing NGR: TF8188515170