Image Credit: Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2015.
Image credit: Open Source Environment Agency LIDAR
Images
From the top of the overwhelming motte...
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
The western prehistoric earthworks from the peerless motte.... don’t let the moronic local yoofs put you off a visit since this is clearly a stupendous site.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Image credit: ruskus
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Very substantial earthworks, these. Fair blew me away, so they did...
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Inner eastern rampart.... ancient roots..........
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Eastern defences from the motte.....
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Ditch between the western ramparts... Nice.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Western Iron Age ramparts from the inner eastern.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Inner face of the inner bank, with the unfeasibly massive castle mound to right. Note the tiny figures upon the ancient earthworks for scale. Hey, these Normans truly were bastards. Some more than others (ahem) .........
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Western inner rampart – at least I believe so. Whatever the pros and cons regarding trees upon ancient ramparts... I love ‘em, me! Incidentally this image (hand held) is not as sharp as it might have been due to some warped chants from local yoof which did them... nor the people of Thetford... any credit. Stupid is as stupid does..
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Eastern inner rampart.... very substantial, indeed. Having said that, a Norman contribution perhaps needs to be taken into account... whatever.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Viewed from the north the – frankly extraordinary – Norman motte towers above the Iron Age earthworks, subsequently utilised as the castle mound’s accompanying bailey defences. The figure gives an indication of the immense scale. Pity the poor Saxon peasants forced to erect the thing, a monument to their repression, now a potent reminder of our own rich heritage.
Image credit: Robert Gladstone
Image credit: C Minns
I found this spearhead? on top of the ‘iron age’ ramparts.
[january 2003] From the top of other ramparts
[january 2003] From the top of the exceedingly muddy motte
[january 2003] The huge Motte. The path is about 1-2 metres across to give some scale.
Articles
Visited 28.10.14
Directions:
Eastern side of Thetford – can’t miss it!
The Norman motte is huge (apparently the largest medieval earthworks in Britain). The banks and ditches surrounding the motte are also very impressive.
This is the part which includes the earlier Iron Age defences.
The site is in a public park so access is not an issue. An added bonus is the fact there is a play ground to keep the little ones happy while you go exploring!
** Thetford was where they filmed Dads Army. Check out the superb statue of Captain Mainwaring! There is also a museum dedicated to the show which, unfortunately, was closed when I visited.
A retrospective check of the ‘log book’ divulges the slightly unwelcome fact that I last visited here back in June 2001. Yeah, doesn’t time (seem to) fly? More to the point, I guess, is the realisation that the Iron Age earthworks didn’t make that much of an impression upon the would-be prehistoric antiquarian back then, the – it has to be said – frankly bonkers Norman motte apparently having blown the somewhat younger mind. To be fair the incredible 80ft castle mound is peerless in its class ... if I understand correctly, second only to the one and only Silbury in the UK artificial mound stakes. Yeah, I know. There’s no comparison. But nonetheless.... simultaneous plaudits and pity are due to those poor Saxon peasants who no doubt struggled to raise this monster for their Norman ‘overlords’.
It therefore fair knocks me back to approach this time around from Castle Hill – that is to the north – and come face to face with towering bivallate banks... and I mean towering. Hell yeah! According to Norfolk HER records excavation has proved these to be of Iron Age origin, although no doubt ‘touched up a bit’ a millennium or so later. The surviving defences form a roughly east/west barrier, the original plan, although not clear to me, possibly using the loop in the River Thet (and presumably, resulting marsh?) as natural defence to other points of the compass? A sort of promontory fort, without the promontory. Or something like that. Whatever, impressive in the extreme.
Which is a lot more than can be said about the tediously puerile, pathetic reaction of a group of Thetford’s yoof to a lone man daring to take pictures of this wonderful site. Vile chants – I’ll spare you the details – ring out from the top of the motte.... safety in numbers. Sure, I’m intimidated by such odds. But I won’t back down. Oh no, not with such wondrous evening light playing upon these ancient, and slightly-not-so-ancient earthworks. Later on I climb to the top of the motte for a rare, aerial view of a hillfort and meet another group of ‘yoofs’, one of whom again states a distaste toward me taking images. Why? Well, clearly (?!?) it proves I’m a pervert. Sorry... don’t get your logic. Hmm. Call me what you will. But I will not stand for that. I really, really hope I’m wrong. Truly, I do... But the young man doth protest too much, methinks.
Hence there are conflicting emotions generated from a return to Thetford. Wonder at the overpowering, overwhelming nature of not only the Norman, but Iron Age defences. And sadness at what visitors to ‘in-town’ sites sometimes have to go through. I would therefore recommend you take a friend, just to be on the safe side. But please go. Don’t let the bastards grind you down. Having said that, I found Castle Hill difficult to locate. So no change there, he says. In retrospect, make your way to the roundabout co-joining the A1088 and A1066 (Hurth Way) and look out for Castle Street – bit of a give-away, that. The earthworks will rise up to your left... parking is within a small free car park (signposted).
[visited 10/1/03] Head into Thetford from the direction of the A1075 and you should go straight past this amazing earthwork. I took the road just before it and parked on the road just past it. This site is visually very rich though I believe most of the visible earthworks are Norman. The huge mound is very reminicent of Silbury Hill, though nowhere near as large. Plus this mound is surrounded by buildings and ramparts.
Watch out for the excessive mud in January as it makes climbing the Motte an “interesting” addition to the day.
How Thetford Got Its Hill.
It requires no inventive novelist to provide Thetford and its neighbourhood with ghostly company. According to legend indeed, this spot early made its acquaintance with beings of the other world, for local folk-lore (a field amazingly neglected by many investigators), has it that the Devil presented us with Castle Hill, cleaning his spade at Thetford after digging Fendyke, near Weeting.
The writer of this article was one day amazed to be accosted in King Street by an old countryman who, without a smile, asked to be directed to “where the Devil scraped his spade!” A blank look of interrogation brought forth the fact that the Castle Hill was the object of the old fellow’s search, and he was sent happily on his way to gaze upon what he firmly believed to be literally a diabolical addition to local scenery.
Another legend attaching to the hill, and associating it with the devil, is that his Most Satanic Majesty at midnight on All Hallow E’en (the eve of All Saints Day), is wont to ride furiously round the hill twelve times on a white horse. Many motorists have thought that one-way gyratory traffic was the invention of the devil!
In the Bury Free Press, 11th June 1932.
The central mound is termed by the townspeople the “High Castle Hill,” and the ascent may be made by various paths, two of which are called the “running path” and “the steps.” One of the ramparts is called the “wooded hill,” and the others are known as the “little hills.” [...]
On the summit of the Castle Hill there is a strange depression from 8 to 10 feet below the surrounding ramparts, and in this five elms were planted in 1823 and still flourish. [...] Almost every person who visits this hill after a lapse of years is convinced that the depression at the top has been greatly lowered in the interval, but for this there appears to be no foundation in fact.
[...] It has been supposed that the ballast from the ditches would not have sufficed to build up the ramparts and mound – the latter alone being nearly 1000 feet in circumference at the base – and local tradition says that the big Gallows’ Pits a few hundred yards away were partly excavated for this purpose.
Tradition throws little light upon the possible origin of the Castle Hill. It is said that after the devil completed the long dykes at Narborough and Newmarket – both are mentioned – he jumped to Thetford, swirled round on one foot and made the earthworks. He is still alleged to haunt a depression – sometimes a muddy pool – in the moat north-east of the wooded hill, and will appear if one walks around seven times at midnight.
One tradition states that there was formerly a splendid royal castle on the site of the hill. It was filled with treasures, which at some period were in danger owing to the raid of a neighbouring tribe. The king, therefore, assembled his mighty men, and by their united efforts the castle and treasure were hidden beneath this huge mound of earth. Tradition, unfortunately, does not state why they were left there. Perhaps, however, the most general belief concerning the hill is that beneath it are seven silver bells, brought hither from the church of the Cluniac Priory, a tradition implicitly accepted by many inhabitants of the town.
From ‘Thetford Castle Hill’ by W G Clarke, in ‘Norfolk Archaeology’ v16, 1907.
The mound is the result of the devil scraping his spade after he’d dug his ‘Devil’s Ditches’ in the locality. If you walk round the hill seven times at midnight you’ll get to meet him. A hollow in the hill is known as ‘the Devil’s Hole’.
There are also said to be golden or silver bells buried in the mound.
(J+C Bord, ‘Atlas of Magical Britain’)
The castle was Norman, but the earthworks are from a previous Iron Age hillfort. The mound is 80ft high, so is one of the largest man-made mounds in the country. It uses the river as defence as well as a double rampart, and possibly controlled the ford of the Icknield Way where it crosses that river.
18th century plan of the earthworks, by Tom Martin.
More pictures of the mound – second largest next to Silbury
A photograph and information about Thetford Castle.
Sites within 20km of Thetford Castle
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Tutt Hill
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Seven Hills Barrows
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Seven Hills (Rushford)
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Mill House Barrow
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Blood Hill
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Mickle Hill
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Honington Barrows
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Troston Mount
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Traveller’s Hill
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Grime’s Graves
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Seven Hills (Rymer)
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Emily’s Wood
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Pepper Hill
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Middle Harling
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Boudicca’s Grave
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East Harling Heath
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King’s Forest Barrow
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Hill of Health
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How Hill
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Icklingham
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Black Ditches North
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Three Hills
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Little Cressingham Barrow Cemetery
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Black Ditches South
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Wayland Wood, Watton
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Oxfoot Stone
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