Edburton Castle Ring (or ''Castle Rings'') is an archaeological site in

West Sussex West Sussex is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Surrey to the north, East Sussex to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Hampshire to the west. The largest settlement is Cr ...

, England, on the peak of Edburton Hill on the

South Downs The South Downs are a range of chalk hills in the south-eastern coastal counties of England that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, in the ...

, near the villages of

Edburton Edburton is a small village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Upper Beeding, in the Horsham district, in the county of West Sussex, England. It is on the road from Upper Beeding to Fulking. In 1931 the parish had a population of 83. O ...

and

Fulking Fulking is a village and civil parish in the Mid Sussex District of West Sussex, England. The parish lies wholly with the South Downs National Park. The parish is located on the north slopes of the South Downs, five miles (8 km) to the north ...

. It is a

Scheduled Monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...

Description

It is a

motte-and-bailey castle 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 ...

, thought to have been built soon after the arrival of the Normans in 1066.'Parishes: Fulking', in ''A History of the County of Sussex: Volume 7, the Rape of Lewes'', ed. L F Salzman (London, 1940), pp. 202-204
British History Online. Retrieved 27 June 2020. The castle survives as earthworks. The motte is a mound of diameter and height , surrounded by a ditch of width about . There is a depression in the centre of the motte where there was 19th-century excavation, the monument being mistaken for a barrow. Adjoining the motte to the north is the bailey; the bank enclosing the bailey is up to above the interior and up to across, with an external ditch of width about .

References

{{reflist Motte-and-bailey castles Scheduled monuments in West Sussex