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© Mr Alan Francis Polaine
IoE Number:
221880
Location:
CASTLE ACRE CASTLE, PYE'S LANE (south side)
CASTLE ACRE, KINGS LYNN AND WEST NORFOLK, NORFOLK
Photographer:
Mr Alan Francis Polaine
Date Photographed:
01 August 2001
Date listed:
13 April 1987
Date of last amendment:
13 April 1987
Grade
I
NOTE - The Images of England website consists of images of listed buildings based on the statutory list as it was in 2001 and does not incoporate subsequent amendments to the list. For an updated version of the statutory list you should visit our LBOnline database http://lbonline.english-heritage.org.uk/Login.aspx
CASTLE ACRE PYE'S LANE (south side)
TF 8115
11/12 Castle Acre Castle
I
Castle containing earlier unfortified house. C11 house converted into
keep mid C12, outer ward c.1200 and C13. Flint and clunch rubble, some stone
dressings. Roofless. Built by the first de Warrene Earls of Surrey (obit 1087)
father of founder of Castle Acre Priory (q.v.), extinct in heirs male 1147.
Abandoned in C14. Post-Conquest country house or domus defensabilis possibly
a two-storey hall, converted into rectangular keep early to mid C12 excavated
1972-1977. Curtain wall in place of former wooden pallisade, clasping buttress
piers survive on exterior west and north side. Lower wall fortified c.1200,
with surviving sections of wall at east and south. To west base of south
abuttment of gateway of C13, possibly contemporary with north Bailey Gate
(q.v.) of Castle Acre. Formerly thought to be a motte and bailey castle of
one build of late Cll. Scheduled Ancient'monument County Number 140. See J.G.
Coad and A.D.F. Streeten "Excavations'at Castle Acre, Castle Acre, Norfolk
1972-1977 : Country house and castle of the Norman Earls of Surrey" Archaeo-
logical Journal CXXXIX (1982), pp. 138-301. In care of HBMC.