Brinklow Castle

I won’t forget the excitement on everyone’s face when we visited Brinklow Castle. A mediaeval motte and bailey castle, Brinklow Castle. The remains of the castle can still be seen as a sizable earthwork. It may be found in Brinklow. My memory of the teacher's explanation of how the keep was constructed on the mound in front of us—a motte—is very clear. He said that this was done to make it more difficult for attackers to seize control. Then, she instructed us to run up the motte to demonstrate how challenging it was, which we did. and when we got to the top, we questioned what all the excitement was about! Ah, the youth’s excitement.

The castle in question is an 11th-century Norman Motte and Bailey structure that guards the Fosse Way. With a substantial amount of ditch still present, the castle mound is visible and spectacular. As it loops around towards the edge of the hill over the hamlet, the bailey also features a sizable bank that is difficult to see because of the forest line. This is evidence that the bailey was split in half at some point. There are some field boundaries that respect the location of the castle, however, I suspect that these markers are much more recent.

The mount is a prominent landmark with stunning views and five elm trees on its peak. It is situated directly along the Fosse Way. A rampant ditch surrounds an inner court to the W, while a second, bigger court that is similarly fortified sits beyond. There are 1.8 to 2.1 acres of work space in total. The mound is 79.2 M in diameter at its base and rises 12 M above the surrounding terrain. It has a flat top that is 15 M across. The surrounding ditch is 6 M deep and 12 M wide. The two courtyards are on slightly lower ground. Inside the ditches are the remains of a rampart.

Although Earl Alberic, the first Norman lord of Brinklow, left his earldom in Northumbria and thus lost his lands in England before the writing of the Domesday, his land and title had not been reassigned by the time of the Domesday recording, so there is a good record of his land holdings. Brinklow appears to have been used as a prehistoric barrow at first, explaining the old English of how the name Brinklow was abandoned somewhere in the 13th century for an unspecified reason.

Brinklow was obviously of strategic importance for a while, although it was never stone-built and seems to have gone out of usage rather fast. What's left offers a priceless window into the site's numerous construction phases. The two baileys, their surrounding bank and ditch, and the causeways connecting the baileys to the outer bank and ditch are all easily visible from the top of the motte. There may have been a Norman predecessor in timber for the stone church built in the 15th century next to the castle entrance.