|
Leafield Castle
Leafield Castle (also known as Leafield Barrow) is a motte castle in the village of Leafield in the north west region of Oxfordshire. All that is left of the castle are the earthworks and the earth mound that formed the centre of the castle. It has a commanding view and is north west of the Church of St Michael and All Angels. The castle is similar in size and shape to the nearby Ascot d'Oilly Castle. The motte measures across and stands up to high. It has a flat, oval summit which measures from north west to south east and from south west to north east. A square feature measuring across with an internal depression square and deep is believed to indicate the remains of the stone keep building. On the opening of a barrow in 1828, some ancient coins were dug up. The village of Leafield itself is very old and was established by at least the 11th century, but there are few medieval remains and these are limited to features in houses that were later extensively rebuilt. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leafield
Leafield is a village and civil parish about northwest of Witney in West Oxfordshire. The parish includes the hamlet of Langley, west of Leafield village. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 945. The village is above sea level in the Cotswold Hills. It was the highest point in Oxfordshire until the 1974 county boundary changes enlarged the county. Archaeology There are a number of tumuli in the parish, including Leafield Barrow, locally called Barry's Hill Tump, on top of the hill just to the north of the village. Leafield Barrow also has archaeological evidence for being the site of a medieval motte-and-bailey castle called Leafield Castle. The castle would be situated at a position in the village which would have given it a commanding view of the settlement. There are visible earthworks present which would add to the castle's defensive capability. The castle is believed to form a similar shape to that of Ascot d'Oilly Castle. History The parish is withi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily due to the work of the University of Oxford and several notable science parks. These include the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus and Milton Park, both situated around the towns of Didcot and Abingdon-on-Thames. It is a landlocked county, bordered by six counties: Berkshire to the south, Buckinghamshire to the east, Wiltshire to the south west, Gloucestershire to the west, Warwickshire to the north west, and Northamptonshire to the north east. Oxfordshire is locally governed by Oxfordshire County Council, together with local councils of its five non-metropolitan districts: City of Oxford, Cherwell, South Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse, and West Oxfordshire. Present-day Oxfordshire spanning the area south of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 build with unskilled labour, but still militarily formidable, these castles were built across northern Europe from the 10th century onwards, spreading from Normandy and Anjou in France, into the Holy Roman Empire in the 11th century. The Normans introduced the design into England and Wales. Motte-and-bailey castles were adopted in Scotland, Ireland, the Low Countries and Denmark in the 12th and 13th centuries. Windsor Castle, in England, is an example of a motte-and-bailey castle. By the end of the 13th century, the design was largely superseded by alternative forms of fortification, but the earthworks remain a prominent feature in many countries. Architecture Structures A motte-and-bailey castle was made up of two structures: a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castle
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. This is distinct from a palace, which is not fortified; from a fortress, which was not always a residence for royalty or nobility; from a ''pleasance'' which was a walled-in residence for nobility, but not adequately fortified; and from a fortified settlement, which was a public defence – though there are many similarities among these types of construction. Use of the term has varied over time and has also been applied to structures such as hill forts and 19th-20th century homes built to resemble castles. Over the approximately 900 years when genuine castles were built, they took on a great many forms with many different features, although some, such as curtain walls, arrowslits, and portcullises, wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earthworks (military)
A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ("to make"). From very early history to modern times, defensive walls have often been necessary for cities to survive in an ever-changing world of invasion and conquest. Some settlements in the Indus Valley civilization were the first small cities to be fortified. In ancient Greece, large stone walls had been built in Mycenaean Greece, such as the ancient site of Mycenae (famous for the huge stone blocks of its ' cyclopean' walls). A Greek '' phrourion'' was a fortified collection of buildings used as a military garrison, and is the equivalent of the Roman castellum or English fortress. These constructions mainly served the purpose of a watch tower, to guard certain roads, passes, and borders. Though smaller than a real fortress, the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ascot D'Oilly Castle
__NOTOC__ Ascot d'Oilly Castle is situated north of the village of Ascott-under-Wychwood in the north west region of Oxfordshire. It is a scheduled ancient monument. A fragment of the castle remains and is a Grade II listed building. It was named after Roger d'Oilly who was granted it by William the Conqueror and whose brother built Oxford Castle. It is thought that the castle was built around 1129 and it was demolished soon after 1175. There are fragmentary remains of a stone tower. The remains consist of raised ground surrounded by broad ditching. Today the motte of the original castle survives as a mound, around wide and high. The ruins of the keep are situated on top of this mound in the central area. It was excavated by Martyn Jope and R. I. Threlfall in 1946–1947 and then in 1959. Excavations carried out in 1946–1947 not only unearthed a number of important artefacts such as 12th-century shelly ware pottery, they also showed how earth was piled up around the outsid ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Forest
A royal forest, occasionally known as a kingswood (), is an area of land with different definitions in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The term ''forest'' in the ordinary modern understanding refers to an area of wooded land; however, the original medieval sense was closer to the modern idea of a "preserve" – i.e. land legally set aside for specific purposes such as royal hunting – with less emphasis on its composition. There are also differing and contextual interpretations in Continental Europe derived from the Carolingian and Merovingian legal systems. In Anglo-Saxon England, though the kings were great huntsmen, they never set aside areas declared to be "outside" (Latin ''foris'') the law of the land. H. R. Loyn, ''Anglo-Saxon England and the Norman Conquest'' 2nd ed. 1991:378-82. Historians find no evidence of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs (c. 500 to 1066) creating forests. However, under the Norman kings (after 1066), by royal prerogative forest law was widely appl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wychwood
Wychwood or Wychwood Forest is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest north of Witney in Oxfordshire. It is also a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade 1, and an area of is a national nature reserve The site contains a long barrow dating to the Neolithic period, which is a scheduled monument. In past centuries the forest covered a much larger area, since cleared in favour of agriculture, villages and towns. However, the forest's area has fluctuated. Parts cleared for agriculture during Britain's centuries under Roman rule later reverted to forest. The existence of the ancient Wychwood is recognised by the authoritative Victoria County History, but the planned Volume XIX has yet to be completed. Etymology Wychwood is derived from an Old English name ''Huiccewudu'' meaning 'wood of a tribe called the Hwicce. The Hwicce were the Anglo-Saxon people living in the area from some time in the 6th century until the assimilation of the Old English peoples into the wider ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castles In Great Britain And Ireland
Castles have played an important military, economic and social role in Great Britain and Ireland since their introduction following the Norman invasion of England in 1066. Although a small number of castles had been built in England in the 1050s, the Normans began to build motte and bailey and ringwork castles in large numbers to control their newly occupied territories in England and the Welsh Marches. During the 12th century the Normans began to build more castles in stone – with characteristic square keep – that played both military and political roles. Royal castles were used to control key towns and the economically important forests, while baronial castles were used by the Norman lords to control their widespread estates. David I invited Anglo-Norman lords into Scotland in the early 12th century to help him colonise and control areas of his kingdom such as Galloway; the new lords brought castle technologies with them and wooden castles began to be established over th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Castles In England
This list of castles in England is not a list of every building and site that has "castle" as part of its name, nor does it list only buildings that conform to a strict definition of a castle as a medieval fortified residence. It is not a list of every castle ever built in England, many of which have vanished without trace, but is primarily a list of buildings and remains that have survived. In almost every case the buildings that survive are either ruined, or have been altered over the centuries. For several reasons, whether a given site is that of a medieval castle has not been taken to be a sufficient criterion for determining whether or not that site should be included in the list. Castles that have vanished or whose remains are barely visible are not listed, except for some important or well-known buildings and sites. Fortifications from before the medieval period are not listed, nor are architectural Folly, follies. In other respects it is difficult to identify clear an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castles In Oxfordshire
A castle is a type of fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by military orders. Scholars debate the scope of the word ''castle'', but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble. This is distinct from a palace, which is not fortified; from a fortress, which was not always a residence for royalty or nobility; from a ''pleasance'' which was a walled-in residence for nobility, but not adequately fortified; and from a fortified settlement, which was a public defence – though there are many similarities among these types of construction. Use of the term has varied over time and has also been applied to structures such as hill forts and 19th-20th century homes built to resemble castles. Over the approximately 900 years when genuine castles were built, they took on a great many forms with many different features, although some, such as curtain walls, arrowslits, and portcullises, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scheduled Monuments In Oxfordshire
A schedule or a timetable, as a basic time-management tool, consists of a list of times at which possible tasks, events, or actions are intended to take place, or of a sequence of events in the chronological order in which such things are intended to take place. The process of creating a schedule — deciding how to order these tasks and how to commit resources between the variety of possible tasks — is called scheduling,Ofer Zwikael, John Smyrk, ''Project Management for the Creation of Organisational Value'' (2011), p. 196: "The process is called scheduling, the output from which is a timetable of some form". and a person responsible for making a particular schedule may be called a scheduler. Making and following schedules is an ancient human activity. Some scenarios associate this kind of planning with learning life skills. Schedules are necessary, or at least useful, in situations where individuals need to know what time they must be at a specific location to receive a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
