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Oxford Castle from the south. St Georges tower, the Crypt, the motte ringed.well, Image: Google Earth Pro

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X X

Oxford - ’s map, 1605. (South at the top) X - New College, with medieval still in place. Below: Oxford showing the trace of the Saxon and later medieval town walls and gates. New College (3). Plan from the ‘Archaeology of Medieval England and Wales’, John Steane, 1984, 120, after Rodwell 1975.

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An early excavation plan from Oxford Archaeology. Semi-conjectural topographical plan of the castle by the mid-13th century. (Based on earlier excavations by Oxford Archaeology). This is subject to revision. The SW tower is ringed. See a slightly updated plan in Munby et al, 2019, Fig. 4.2.

The Wenceslaus Hollar sketch of 1643. View from the north. From The Royal Collection Trust ref RCIN 701888. Cropped view from Hollar’s Oxford Town map. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019. See also Munby et al, 2019, Fig, 1.12

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Oxford Castle / Prison, as it was in 1939 (An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of Oxford (© RCHME). The prison closed in the late 1990s, and the buildings were converted to other uses including a hotel (Malmaison), and a prison museum. The plan does not show the , since excavated further SE of the south gateway, but not now visible. Inset: Plan of Tower and crypt. The motte is recorded at 64ft above road level, but may once have been higher. St George’s Tower is: 80 ft (24.4m) high. At its base it is 35ft (10.5m), E-W and 37 ft (11.3m) N-S with walls 9 ft (2.7m) thick. Their are six offsets in its externals walls, but these do not correspond to internal floor levels (4).

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The only known view of Oxford castle’s SW Tower before demolition. The tower appears to be polygonal. Sketch by John Pridden (1758-1825) - a view toward the north, of the castle ramparts in Nov. 1785. (In other words, a view from the south-west). From left to right Pridden’s labels are: Great Tower; Jailor’s house; Chapel; Mount; Southeast Tower; Entrance & bridge. I am grateful to Dan Poore of Oxford Archaeology in sending an image of this print after seeing it in a presentation in Oxford in February 2018. The tower in question is ringed on the Hollar etching on page 42. Bodleian MS Top Oxon d.281 f.111. See also Munby et al 2019, Fig. 1.38 Oxford Castle - Historical Summary mound rather than on top. Stone walls and towers Oxford castle is the site of one of the earliest were added to the (inner) over the course of Norman occupations in the Upper Thames area, the 11th to 13th centuries - a total of six, including established to control an important crossing of the St. George’s Tower. The form of the tower on the and a strategic defended Saxon burh. motte has been debated for many years, as to It was built for by Robert whether it was a roofed tower or a with d’Oilly in 1071 and remained a royal property until an internal central open courtyard or light-well. (see 1611. The defensive position was chosen near the Guy, N, 2005-6, 152-178, Norton, A., 2015, Munby river, at the western edges of the existing Saxon et al 2019 135-139, and further discussion below. town, at this time, earth-banked walls probably St. George’s Tower by the Gate topped by a wooden palisade or stone wall. The Although it has been generally assumed to be of excavation drawing shows how the motte and Saxo-Norman date, its origins have always been bailey(s) were once ditched and surrounded by uncertain. The tower differs markedly from St. water channelled from the river. Documentary Michael’s Northgate which is dated to the first half evidence rests with the Annals of of the . It was once thought that the ‘MLXXI. Eodem anno aedificatum est castellum tower may have formed part of the original castle Oxonfordense a Roberto de Oilly primo’ (Annales constructed in 1071, as the first structure to be built Monastici - Rolls Series 36, 1869. Vol. 4 p. 9. in stone at Norman was often a tower at The first Norman structure was the motte, 250 ft ground level due to the instability of the motte (76m) diameter at base, 81 ft (25m) diameter at (Renn 1968, 10). It is also feasible that the tower the top and over 64 ft (20m) high, built of of earth, was constructed by Norman engineers prior to the clay and stone. (Wimpey’s borehole 6 found many Conquest. A consensus is now generally supported stepped layers of sand and gravel over clay, but for a Saxon period/date for the tower. The late with some stone fragments near the summit - Derek Renn suggested that St George’s Tower may Hassall, T. G. Oxoniensia XLI 238-9). It includes have been a pre-Conquest structure or ‘burhgeat’ a well, covered in the late 12th or more probably originally built as a western gate-tower (Anglo- 13th century by an elegant rib-vaulted chamber Norman Studies XVI 1994, 179-81). It is an reached by a descending flight of stairs from an imposing structure, although the vaulted stair turret entrance into the upper edge of the motte (see in the south-east corner is of Norman build, perhaps image, circled). A castle donjon, probably first of mid-late 12th century. A Romanesque tower-arch wood, then of stone, described as decagonal or lies in its east wall. See Munby et al, 2019, 75-120. 10-sided, crowned the summit, although a number Shapland, 2019 79, considers the tower to be mid of sketches show it artistically adjacent to the 11th century and describes it as a ‘lordly tower-nave’.

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St. George’s Tower from the NW looking across St. George’s Tower. The north facade - section the mill stream. This view is from outside the castle. east-west. Internal floor levels have been altered. The windows were probably enlarged when the Prison-installed water tanks remain. Image tower was used as part of the mill complex. courtesy of the Oxford Preservation Trust. The Motte Tower When the foundations of the motte tower were examined in the 18th century, Daniel Harris found the footings of an inner decagonal tower wall, described by King in a somewhat confused manner (see plan over). In whatever form it was built, the shell-type keep was very likely the ‘Great Tower’ described as ‘almost completely ruinous’ by 1327 with the usual exaggeration of such reports (Colvin et al, II, 774). Along with other commentators the settled view about the appearance of the motte tower The Crypt is that the inner decagonal wall found by Harris formed the 3ft (0.92m) thick inner supporting wall The crypt, now lying under the old prison ‘D’ wing, that thus enable a circuit of chambers to be formed is of early Norman date (RCHME) but in 1794 it around the inner side of the shell keep, with a central was largely destroyed along with the chapel, and circular courtyard or light well. See Hulme, R. B., the surviving portions, notably 4 columns were ‘Review of BAR 62’, in CSG Journal 30, 2016-7, re-erected in a new cellar; the crypt was enlarged 319-20. Following the 2008-9 excavations Munby by the addition of two columns and capitals, et al now prefer this latter shell-keep / light well unadorned apart from block chamfering, and of viewpoint (2019, pp. 32-33). The tower is shown unknown provenance. It is now 3.1/2 bays long by by Agas (1577) as a single tall polygonal structure 3 bays wide. Its renewed groin vaults spring from with windows at a high level in each face (Munby original columns with crudely carved Romanesque Fig. 1.9), and on the Christ Church plan (1617) also capitals. The cobbled floor is later. See note p. 48. as a single polygonal tower (Munby, Fig. 1. 10).

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Bodleian MS Wood F.39, f 200 Revealed foundations of the 10-sided keep in John Aubrey’s sketch of 1673, of the 10-sided keep 2008-9. The outer ring is from Harris (King’s on the motte, with its severe crack. Footings of Vestiges pl. cxxvi, f2), The crack in the wall, three sides of the tower were revealed in 2008-9, (right) sketched by Aubrey was discovered and confirming its form. Its internal structure now exposed in trench 223. (Munby et al Fig. 4.7) seems resolved. Part-demolished c. 1240s.

The hexagonal well chamber, buried within the motte, from the north. The vault has chamfered ribs springing from tapering corbels. (Image left, drawn by Harris and published in King’s Vestiges, pl. cxxvii, f1). The motte and motte tower archaeology The motte Well Chamber The 2008-9 investigations on the motte provided The 12ft (3.66m) high chamber overlays the an invaluable insight into the mound and its keep. well-head, which Daniel Harris concluded The motte was constructed by means of dumped continued 54ft (16.5m) to the bottom. Norton layers of gravel and stabilizing clay deposits. Steps writes (2015, 205) that it is thought to date from were cut into the deposits to enable the ‘keying in’ 1173-4 (Colvin et al 1963, II, 772) and is slightly of subsequent dumps of material, particularly a off-centre from the inner supporting wall (see thick deposit of Oxford clay that sealed all the above and previous page). RCHM (1939), 158 motte deposits. The stepped-construction tech- considered the chamber to be of the [mid?] 13th nique is uncommon; more typical is Norwich century with its square abaci and tapering corbels. where the motte was constructed of horizontal The present (but later) entrance to the chamber is dumps of material and layers tipping at 45% into approached on the south side of the motte. A the centre of the motte. See Munby et al, 2019, pp. flight of steps leads down about 20ft (6m) into 134-139 and photographs of the motte remediation the chamber. Its roof is about 5ft (1.52m) below works, figs. 4.5, 4.6 to 4.8. the motte top surface. Munby et al, 2019, 139.

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Oxford Castle. The motte, under necessary repair in 2008-9, after land slippage, but revealing the building methods of how the motte was built up, using a mixture of sand, gravel and clay in stepped layers. Image courtesy and © Oxford Archaeology Ltd (from their new 2019 monograph listed below).

Stabilising the Motte sides of the keep, and a linear anomaly of possible During the summer of 2008 large-scale remedia- archaeological origin (Strata scan 2009). Based tion works were undertaken on the motte (SAM on the geophysical survey and results of the 21701), following a land slip in 2007 due to heavy earlier excavations, three trenches were hand rain (and where in 1972 the revetment to New excavated at the summit of the mound and were Road had been strengthened). The upper deposits designed to investigate any evidence for a timber of the sloping side of the motte were mechanically construction on the motte, further evidence of the removed and the exposed make-up deposits masonry-built 10-sided shell-keep and the point recorded as part of an archaeological investigation where the castle curtain walls abutted it, the (Figs. 1.3, 1.8, of the Munby et al 2019 mono- medieval and post-medieval deposits within the graph) Amongst the features recorded during the shell keep and the construction technique of the works were the masonry remains of the tower or 13th-century well chamber and its entrance (see shell keep, civil war defences, and later post- page 39). For further information see: medieval landscaping (OA 2008a). Munby, J., Norton, A., Poore, D., Dodd, A., (eds.) As part of a more general research objective and 2019, Excavations at Oxford Castle 1999-2009, so as to present a coherent picture of the castle Thames Valley Landscapes Monograph 44, mound to the wider public, the Oxford Preserva- (Oxford, Oxford Archaeology). See p. 329. tion Trust sought to build on the results of the The Crypt (continued from p. 46) 2008 investigation and commissioned a geo- physical survey and excavation at the summit of The capitals probably date from c. 1074. The fluted the mound in 2009. The geophysical survey was chamfered block design is a simplified form of the carried out using Ground Penetrating Radar, corner foliage of Corinthian capitals and can be Magnetometer survey and Resistance survey, traced back to Jumièges abbey church, 1067. See and identified the line of the eastern and western Crook., J., 2015, 111-116, and St John’s chapel.

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New College Oxford. The college garden. The town wall along the north side, looking west, with a number of large well-preserved open-backed or gap-back bastions. Oxford Town Walls On the south side of Oxford, on the SE corner, The north-east quadrant of the town wall in and the is missing but the next one to the west around the precincts of New College, with its survives. There is along here a 951ft (290m) long wall-walk, crenellated parapets and several D- section of continuous walling ending in another shaped bastions is the finest section of 13th bastion, and the south face of most of this is century town wall now left in England and the publicly accessible, but not so impressive, being equal of anything to be seen at Conwy, much patched and nowhere more than 3.5m Caernarfon, Denbigh or Tenby. Walk the north high. 16th- and 17th-century development means stretch, along the ‘Slype’ parallel to Holywell St, that from this point the wall is mostly lost, save but inside the college precinct. Turning right still for a small section to the south of St Aldates within the precinct at the tall corner bastion and church, by the old South Gate, running west. At continue until you get to the dead end. The the end go through another iron gate and work bastions are fairly evenly-spaced at intervals your way back to the High St. between 180ft (55m) and 213ft (65m), a more Open-backed (or gap-back) towers were not regular arrangement than was common in unusual in the whole of the 13th century (for England. In the 1290s? a long lost concentric outer example, at Beeston and Corfe castles, usually in wall 1m thick with its own rounded bastions outer baileys, and Conwy and Caernarfon town matching the curtain behind it was built out into walls). The distinctive basal stirrup oillets in the the ditch around the NE corner, giving concentric arrow slits of the bastions in the surviving inner lines of defence 10m apart - unique amongst town wall can, by analogy with Caernarfon, be dated walls in Britain, but recalling the double lines of to the 1280s, but it does raise the possibility that defense at Carcassonne, France. It is unclear why these features are later insertions or modifications only a small discontinuous section in the north- to existing bastions of the 1250s or later. The east part of the town is so designed. (For a internal loop embrasures, just tall enough to stand re-creative conjectural illustration see Creighton. within at ground level are formidable. Four loops O., and Higham. R., 2005, Pl. 24 & pp 147,161). at ground level, three at first-floor level and three or more at roof-top level within the merlons in Work on the existing parts of the town wall addition to the crenellations themselves; though began c. 1226 when murage was granted by all perhaps more for effect than for reality, The Henry III. In 1227, 34 major landowners in the upper parts of the bastions may well be town were ordered to contribute to the works. restorations by William of Wykeham c. 1360s. The wall eventually may have had up to 30 For a short five-minute appraisal of the 13th- D-shaped flanking bastions, a third of which century walls and towers see Julian Munby on the remain, and six gateways, none of which have YouTube video referenced below: The architecture survived apart from several minor bastions. The of New College. He notes that in Oxford ‘We have walls were surrounded by ditches wide enough one of the best lengths of city walls in England.’ to be a formidable barrier on the north side, where, in part, they were water-filled. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGo6npxdi5I

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The best preserved part of Oxford’s town wall - the north & north-east by New College. (Detail from Speed’s map).

The Slype looking east toward Bastions 13, 14. The Slype, looking at Bastion 12. Cut through into Upper parts heightened and restored by Wykeham. New College, near the kitchens, in the 18th century.

When William of Wykeham bought the land for New College from the City of Oxford in 1379, Wykeham made it a condition that the college should maintain the wall that runs around the site. The Warden and Scholars and Alumni of New College bound themselves and their successors: See: http://www.oxfordhistory. org.uk/city_wall/index.h tml

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Further Reading Armitage, E., 1912, Early Norman Castles of the Hassall, T. G. (1976) ‘Excavations at Oxford Castle: British Isles (London: John Murray) pp. 180-1 1965-1973,’ in Oxoniensia, XLI (1976) Booth, P., 2003, ‘The west gate of Oxford Castle: Hulme, R. B., ‘Review of BAR 621’, in Castle Studies excavations at Boreham’s Yard, Tidmarsh Lane, Group Journal, Vol. 30, 2016-17, pp. 319-321. Oxford, 1994-1995’ Oxoniensia Vol. 68 pp. 363-422 King, E., 1796, Vestiges of Oxford Castle; or, a small Brown, R. A., 1989, Castles from the Air (Cambridge fragment of a work intended to be published speedily University Press) pp. 172-73 on the History of Ancient Castles, (London) Buck, S., and N., 1774, Buck's Antiquities or Mackenzie, J. D., 1896, Castles of England; their story Venerable remains of above four hundred castles, and structure (New York: Macmillan) Vol. 1 pp.. monasteries, palaces etc. Vol. 2 (London) p. 241 159-163 online copy Colvin, H. M., Brown, R. A., and Taylor, A. J., 1963, Munby J., Norton A., Poore D., Dodd, A., (eds.) 2019, The History of the King’s Works Vol. 2: the Middle Excavations at Oxford Castle 1999-2009, Thames Ages (London: HMSO) pp. 771-5 (esp. 773). Valley Landscapes Monograph 44, (Oxford, Oxford Archaeology). Cooper, J., 1979, ‘Castle’ in, Crossley, A. (ed.), VCH Vol. 4, The City of Oxford (OUP for the Norton, A., 2015, ‘Recent work on Oxford Castle: New finds Institute of Historical Research) pp. 296-300 and new interpretations’ in Keats-Rohan K. S. B., Christie, N., and Roffe, D., (eds), Wallingford: The Castle and the Creighton, O., 2005, Medieval Town Walls: an Town in Context (Oxford: Archaeopress BAR British series archaeology and social history of urban defence, 621) pp. 200-209. (Stroud, Tempus) pp 147, 161-2 Poore, D., Norton, A. and Dodd, A., 2009, ‘Excavations Creighton, O., 2002, Castles and Landscapes (London at Oxford Castle: Oxford’s western quarter from the and New York: Continuum) p. 134-5 mid-Saxon period to the late eighteenth century (based Creighton, O., 2015, ‘Castle, Landscape and on Daniel Poore’s Tom Hassall Lecture for 2008)’ Townscape in Thirteenth-Century England: Oxoniensia Vol. 74 pp. 1-18 Wallingford, Oxfordshire and the ‘Princely Building Potts, W., 1907, in Page, W (ed), ‘Ancient Earthworks’ Strategies’ of Richard, Earl of Cornwall’ in J. Peltzer VCH Oxfordshire Vol. 2 p. 326 (ed), Rank and Order: The Formation of Aristocratic Elites in Western and Central Europe, 500–1500 Purton, P. F., 2009, A History of the Early Medieval (Ostfildern: Thorbecke Jan Verlag) pp. 332-333 c. 450-1220 (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press) pp. 175, 271 (1141 siege). Crook. J., 2008, ‘St. John’s Chapel’, in The White Tower, Impey, E, (ed.), (London, Yale. Univ. Press) RCHME, 1939, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of Oxford (HMSO) pp. 156-8 Davies, M. J., 2005, Stories of Oxford Castle: From plates 211-13 online transcription Dungeon to Dunghill (Oxford Towpath Press) Renn, D. F., 1973 (2 edn.), Norman Castles of Britain Dodd, A., (ed), 2003, Oxford before the university: the (London: John Baker) pp. 266, 272 late Saxon and Norman archaeology of the Thames crossing, the defences and the town (Oxford Salter, M., 2013, Medieval Walled Towns, (Malvern, Archaeology: Thames Valley landscape monograph Folly Publications). pp. 116-119. 17) (esp. chap 4 by J. Munby and D. Wilkinson) Salter, M., 2002, The Castles of The Thames Valley and Drage, C., 1987, ‘Urban castles’ in Schofield, J. and The Chilterns (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 73 Leech, R. (eds) Urban Archaeology in Britain (CBA Shapland, M. G., 2019, Anglo-Saxon Towers of Research Report 61) p. 117-32 online copy Lordship., (Oxford, ), 79-81 Goodall, J., 2011, The English Castle 1066-1650 (Yale Shapland, M. G., 2017, ‘Anglo-Saxon towers of lordship University Press) p. 73, 128 and the origins of the castle in England’, in Hadley, D. M. Grose, F, 1785 (new edn, orig 1756), Antiquities of and Dyer, C. The Archaeology of the 11th Century England and Wales (London) Vol. 4 p. 182-5 Continuities and Transformations (Routledge) pp. 104-119. Guy, N., 2005-6, ‘Oxford Castle’, in Castle Studies Turner, H. L., 1971, Town Defences in England and Group Journal, Vol 19, pp. 118-121, 152-178 Wales (London) pp. 121-2 Haslam, J., 2010, ‘The origin of the two burhs of Turner, H. L., 1990, ‘The mural Mansions of Oxford: Oxford’ Oxoniensia Vol. 75 pp. 25-34 online copy attempted identifications’ Oxoniensia Vol. 55 pp. 73-9

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