Cambridge Castle



Cambridge castle was apparently founded by William I (d.1087) in 1068, while Domesday Book recorded 27 demolished houses under its site.  The castle was then left pretty much as a military backwater although it was reconstructed by King Edward I (1272-1307) after 1283 for a cost of some £2,500.  The fortress was then left to decline and by the time of a 1367 inquest was found to be defective in walls, towers and houses.  In the next century the buildings began to be stripped for building stone for the university colleges.  In 1606 the only surviving functional building was the south-west gatehouse which was utilised as a prison.  As early as 1590 the castle had been described as ‘old, ruined and decayed'.

In 1643 Cambridge became headquarters to the Eastern Counties Association with the result that the bailey was reconstructed as a bastioned fort, while 15 houses were demolished and a brick barracks built on the site of the old great hall.  In 1647 the defences were slighted, although the gatehouse and barracks were retained as prison buildings.  In the early nineteenth century a new gaol was built and the castle site further mutilated with the bailey being lowered and levelled, while the moat north of the motte was filled with building debris.  Finally in 1842 the gatehouse was demolished leaving just the castle motte and the fort earthworks of this once great masonry castle.

Description
The castle site stands on the highest point of ground in the city, a spur called Castle Hill.  The mutilated motte is some 200' in basal diameter with a summit diameter of 34'.  It has been suggested that the possible remains of a berm around the motte top indicate that a shell keep of some description once surrounded the keep.  Currently the motte stands 33' high to the north and 53' to the south.  A bailey bank survives in places up to 6' high.


Accounts and surveys of the site suggest that the castle had a stone curtain wall, the south-west rectangular gatetower with barbican, towers at the north, south and east angles of the bailey and a great hall to the north-west.  The fotress seems to have been surrounded by wet moats, as too was the motte.


 

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