Crewkerne Castle was possibly a Norman

Norman architecture

About|Romanesque architecture, primarily English|other buildings in Normandy|Architecture of Normandy.File:Durham Cathedral. Nave by James Valentine c.1890.jpg|thumb|200px|The nave of Durham Cathedral demonstrates the characteristic round arched style, though use of shallow pointed arches above the...

 motte and bailey castle on a mound that is situated north-west of the town of Crewkerne

Crewkerne

Crewkerne is a town in Somerset, England, situated south west of Yeovil and east of Chard in the South Somerset district close to the border with Dorset. The civil parish of West Crewkerne includes the hamlets of Woolminstone and Henley...

 in Somerset

Somerset

The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

, England.

Details

Crewkerne Castle a 450 feet (137.2 m) high outcrop that since at least 1839 has been termed a castle site. Archaeological

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 and geophysical

Geophysics

Geophysics is the physics of the Earth and its environment in space; also the study of the Earth using quantitative physical methods. The term geophysics sometimes refers only to the geological applications: Earth's shape; its gravitational and magnetic fields; its internal structure and...

 research has found a ditch around the hilltop, with a masonry square within it, while fragments of 12th century pottery have been found on the site. One theory is that this is a Norman motte; another that it is a 13th century manor house; alternatively it may be simply have been a local folly

Folly

In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but either suggesting by its appearance some other purpose, or merely so extravagant that it transcends the normal range of garden ornaments or other class of building to which it belongs...

.

The manor had been granted to Richard de Redvers

Richard de Redvers

Richard de Redvers was a Norman nobleman, from Reviers in Normandy, who may have been one of the companions of William the Conqueror during the Norman conquest of England from 1066...

 by Henry I

Henry I of England

Henry I was the fourth son of William I of England. He succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106...

 by the year 1107 and it is thought that his son Baldwin

Baldwin de Redvers, 1st Earl of Devon

Baldwin de Redvers, 1st Earl of Devon was the son of Richard de Redvers and his wife Adeline Peverel.He was one of the first to rebel against King Stephen, and was the only first rank magnate never to accept the new king. He seized Exeter, and was a pirate out of Carisbrooke, but he was driven out...

 built on the hill. In 1150 the Bishop of Salisbury

Bishop of Salisbury

The Bishop of Salisbury is the ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of Salisbury in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers much of the counties of Wiltshire and Dorset...

was given the services of knights associated with the castle.

Further reading

• Fry, Plantagenet Somerset, The David & Charles Book of Castles, David & Charles, 1980. ISBN 0-7153-7976-3