Clavering Castle remains are situated in the small parish village of Clavering in the county of

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, England, 50m north of the church of St Mary and St Clement on the southern bank of the

River Stort The River Stort is a river in Essex and Hertfordshire, England. It is long and flows from near the village of Langley to the River Lea at Hoddesdon. The river's name is a back-formation from the name of the town of Bishop's Stortford. The 1 ...

, some north of

Bishop's Stortford Bishop's Stortford is a historic market town and civil parish in the East Hertfordshire district, in the county of Hertfordshire, England. It is in the London metropolitan area, London commuter belt, near the border with Essex, just west of the ...

().

History

Pre-Conquest

The site of this castle is unusual in that the ringworks and earthworks that remain have been identified as predating the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...

, and Clavering Castle was built no later than 1052. Ringworks are medieval fortifications built and occupied from late

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

times to the later 12th century. A ringwork was a small defended area which contained buildings surrounded or partially surrounded by a large ditch and a bank topped with a timber palisade or, more unusually, a stone wall. Occasionally a more lightly defended embanked enclosure, the bailey, adjoined the ringwork. Ringworks acted as strongholds for military operations and defended aristocratic or major settlements. They are rare, and there are only 200 recorded examples, fewer than 60 have baileys. Clavering Castle is one of a limited number and very restricted range of Anglo-Saxon and Norman fortifications and the ringworks are of particular significance for investigating the period.The Recorders of Uttlesford History. (June 2008).
Clavering Castle
. Retrieved 08-06-17. A series of earth banks, channels and pond bays have not been dated but are believed to be associated with a former mill. These earthworks extend for 200m to the west of the castle along the banks of the River Stort. The River Stort flows around the north side of the site and has been diverted to feed the moat. Archaeological excavations have established that there was a pre-Conquest settlement and the later Norman castle.

Lords of Clavering

The first known Lord of Clavering mentioned in 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 was

Robert FitzWimarc Robert fitz Wimarc (died before 1075, Theydon Mount, Chipping Ongar, Ongar, Essex) was a kinsman of both Edward the Confessor and William of Normandy, and was present at Edward's death bed. Nothing of his background is known except his kinship t ...

, an image of whom is believed to appear on the

Bayeux Tapestry The Bayeux Tapestry is an embroidery, embroidered cloth nearly long and tall that depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest, Norman Conquest of England in 1066, led by William the Conqueror, William, Duke of Normandy challenging H ...

, at

Edward the Confessor Edward the Confessor ( 1003 – 5 January 1066) was King of England from 1042 until his death in 1066. He was the last reigning monarch of the House of Wessex. Edward was the son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy. He succeede ...

's deathbed. ‘Robert’s Castle’ mentioned in Domesday is thought to refer to Clavering Castle. FitzWimarc was a Frenchman and was one of Edward the Confessor's closest aides; he has a

school A school is the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...

named after him in

Rayleigh, Essex Rayleigh is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Rochford (district), Rochford District in Essex, England; it is located between Chelmsford, Essex, Chelmsford and Southend-on-Sea, east of central London. It had a po ...

. The site at Clavering is identified as one of the castles to which the French party at Edward the Confessor's court fled in 1052.

Stone coffin

A stone coffin was found in 1923 and is believed to have contained the remains of a Clavering lord: : "A coffin of stone, weighing about a ton, and containing the well-preserved skeleton of a man, has been discovered at Clavering. Workmen engaged in erecting a fence around the churchyard at a depth of two feet, came upon the solid slab of stone which formed the lid of the coffin. When unearthed it was found to be seven feet in length and two feet wide. The lid, walls and base of the coffin were six inches thick and were cut out of solid sandstone. The skull was that of an intellectual head, and the teeth were perfect. The discovery was made on the edge of a moat which formerly surrounded Clavering Castle, and probably on the site of an ancient chapel attached to the castle. The castle has long since disappeared and only the mound now remains. It was evident the coffin had been disturbed at some previous date, as one end of the lid was broken… the coffin was reinterred."

Archaeology

Archaeologists have inspected the site and together with aerial photographs have dated the site as possibly 410 to 1065 early

Medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

with evidence of an

Iron Age The Iron Age () is the final epoch of the three historical Metal Ages, after the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age. It has also been considered as the final age of the three-age division starting with prehistory (before recorded history) and progre ...

British fort on a defensive site later built on by the

Saxons The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

and then

Normans The Normans (Norman language, Norman: ''Normaunds''; ; ) were a population arising in the medieval Duchy of Normandy from the intermingling between Norsemen, Norse Viking settlers and locals of West Francia. The Norse settlements in West Franc ...

. The castle, moat, bridge, building, earthwork, dam, pond, and watermill all date from 1066 to 1539.Unlocking Essex's Past
Accessed 19/12/07

Notes

References

* Fry, Plantagenet Somerset, ''The David & Charles Book of Castles'', David & Charles, 1980.

External links

Clavering Castle
{{coord, 51.96702, N, 0.13981, E, region:GB_source:enwiki-osgb36(TL471320), display=title Castles in Essex Ruins in Essex Castles in England built before 1066 Ruined castles in England Clavering, Essex