Driffield Castle is located in the town of

Driffield Driffield, also known as Great Driffield (neighbouring Little Driffield), is a market town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The civil parish is formed by the town of Driffield and the village of Little Driffield. By ...

, approximately north of

Beverley Beverley is a market town and civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It is located north-west of Hull city centre. At the 2021 census the built-up area of the town had a population of 30,930, and the smaller civil parish had ...

East Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire, often abbreviated to the East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, S ...

, England (). It was a Norman earthwork

motte and bailey 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 ...

fortress which was founded by

Hugh d'Avranches, 1st Earl of Chester Hugh d'Avranches ( 1047 – 27 July 1101), nicknamed ''le Gros'' (the Large) or ''Lupus'' (the Wolf), was from 1071 the second Norman Earl of Chester and one of the great magnates of early Norman England. Early life and career Hugh d'A ...

. It was re-fortified in the 13th century. The motte was damaged by 19th-century quarrying, and houses have encroached on the bailey. The site listing in

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked with prot ...

notes that excavations in the 19th century and in 1975 revealed the remains of a Roman occupation dating to the fourth century AD, underlying the motte. Driffield 19th-century archaeologist John Robert Mortimer noted fragments of medieval swords, spears and silver coins. A reference to Driffield in the

Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the ninth century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of ...

suggests that this is also the site of a rare eighth-century Northumbrian palace, and the site is known to have been part of the royal demesne from the 11th to 15th centuries AD. The castle and surrounding 2.33-acre site was sold at auction in 2011. Only earthworks now remain and the site is known as Moot Hill.

References

* * * Castles in the East Riding of Yorkshire Driffield {{England-castle-stub