Brinklow Castle, known locally as the Tump, is a medieval castle in the village of
Brinklow in the county of
Warwickshire
Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Ox ...
between
Coventry
Coventry ( or rarely ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands county, in England, on the River Sherbourne. Coventry had been a large settlement for centurie ...
and
Rugby.
History
Brinklow seems to have first been used as a prehistoric barrow, hence the old English 'hlāw' in the name Brinklow. It was later modified during the late 11th century by
Aubrey de Coucy, the first Norman lord of Brinklow, but he left his Earldom in Northumbria and thus lost his lands in England before the writing of the
Domesday Book
Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...
of 1086. However his land and title had not been reassigned by the time of the Domesday survey, so there is a good record of his land holdings. The castle was abandoned during the 13th century for unknown reasons.
Brinklow Castle is a
motte-and-bailey castle of grand size: the motte is 12 m high and its original bailey was 121m wide by 152m long. Later it seems that Brinklow's bailey was modified to enclose a smaller area by cutting a ditch and forming a rampart in the middle of the bailey;
[Chatwin: 1948, 4.] this seems to suggest that Brinklow slowly declined.
See also
*
Castles in Great Britain and Ireland
*
List of castles in England
Bibliography
*Creighton C, 2002: ''Castles and Landscapes Power, Community and Fortification in Medieval England''. Equinox, Great Britain
*Chatwin P, 1955: "Brandon Castle, Warwickshire, Birmingham and Warwickshire Archaeology", ''Society'', 73, 63–83
*Holt, J. 1972: "Politics and Property in Early Medieval England", ''Past & Present'', 57, 3–52
*Williams A (Ed), Martin GH (Ed), 2003: ''Domesday book, A complete Translation''. Penguin books, England
Further reading
*Fry, Plantagenet Somerset, ''The David & Charles Book of Castles'', David & Charles, 1980.
References
External links
Brinklow Village Website - The Tump
Castles in Warwickshire
Motte-and-bailey castles
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