Motte and Bailey

12th C

de Warenne, Hamelin Plantagenet, Dukes of York, Crown

de Warenne : Chequy or and azure. :

Hamelin Plantagenet : Semee of France within a bordure of England, later as deWarenne. :

York : France ancient and England quarterly with a lable of three points argent each charged with three torteaux.

Leland states : At the east end of the village is a pretty castlet on a hilling ground with a ditch about it. It belonged to Warine Earl of Surrey but now to the king.

Castellarium Anglicanum : Powerful motte and bailey, partly natural with counter-scarp banks and ECW earthworks. Presumably the successor to Wakefield. Stonework from 1190. Besieged and taken during ECW and reduced. Much excavated.

Sandholme
Eastrington
SE 829 305

Possible fortified manor house

Le Patourel : Alexander de Metham, knight, held messuage in 1415, but identification difficult. Probably site of manor house held by William de Thorncroft, since no other earthwork can represent this capital messuage.

Saxton
WR
SE 477367
Tadcaster

Motte

Scarborough
TA 050893

Tower and enclosure

12th C

le Gros, Crown

le Gros : Quartered argent and azure, a bend sable

According to Leland : Scarborough town, though it be priviledged, yet iy seemeth to be in Pickering Lithe, for the castle of Scarborough is counted of the jurisdiction of Pickering and the shore from Scarborough to the very point of Filey Brig, by the sea is about six miles. Scarborough where it is not defended by the warthe and the sea is walled, a little with stone, but most with ditches and walls of earth. In the town to enter by land be bur two gates ; Newburgh Gate, meatly good, and Aldburgh Gate, very base. The town standeth whole on a slatey cliff. ... At the east end of the town on the one point of the bosom of the sea where the habour for the ships is, standeth an exceedingly good large and strong castle on a steep rock having but one way by the steep slaty crag to come to it. And or ever a man can enter "aream castelli" there be two towers and betwixt each of them a draw bridge, having steep rock on each side of them. In the first court is the arx and three towers and row, and then joineth a wall to them as an arm from the first court to the point of the sea cliff containing in it six towers whereof the second is square and full of lodgings and is called the Queen's Tower or Lodging. without the first area is a great green containing , to reckon down to the very shore, sixteen acres and within it is a chapel, and beside, old walls of house and offices that stood there. But of all the castle the arx is the eldest and the strongest part. The entry of the castle betwixt the draw bridges is such that with costes the sea might come round about the castle, the which standeth as a little foreland or point betwixt two bays. At the southeast point of Scarborough town by the shore is a bulwark now in ruin by the sea's rage made by Richard III that lay a while at Scarborough castle and besides began to wall a piece of the town.

ECW besieged taken and reduced, impressive ruins upon cliff headland. Site includes Roman signal station, partially eroded

Scarborough

Town Walls

Few remains

Scorborough
TA 017452
Beverley

Fortified Manor

Hotham

Hotham : Barruly of ten argent and azure, a canton or charged with a Cornish chough proper.

ECW - fortified and made defencible by Sir John Hotham, govenor of Hull, later executed by Parliament for treason.

Scotton
WR

Manor House

Percy, Pulleyn

Percy of Scotton : Per fess argent and gules, a lion rampant per fess sable and argent

Sedbergh
SD 662923

Motte and Bailey

11th C

Crown, Mowbray

Selby
WR

Not Licensed

Possible adulterine motte maybe with bailey. Some few earthworks

Sheffield
SK 358877

Strong Castle , licensed 1270, included at least one large round tower.

ECW, dismantled 1644

Lic. 54HIII

de Furnival

de Furnival : Argent, a bend between six mascles gules

Large rectangular moats, licensed 1382 as a forceletum, courtyard castle. Episcopal manor house

Sherburn in Elmet
SE 531333
Garforth

Mound

Sherriff Hutton
SE 652662
York

Courtyard Castle

14th C

Neville

Richard Duke of Gloucester

Leland States : The castle of Sheriff Hutton, as I learned there was builded by Rafe (Neville) of Raby the first Earl of Westmoreland of the Nevilles and I heard that in his time he builded or greatly augmented or repaired three castles beside. There is a base court with houses of office afore the entering of the castle. The castle self in the front is not ditched but it standeth "in loco utcunque edito". I marked in the fore front of the first area of the castle self three great and high towers of the which the gatehouse was the middle. In the second area there be five or six towers and the statley stair upto the hall is very magnificent and so is the hall itself and all the residue of the house, in so much that I saw no house in the north so like princely lodgings. I learned there that the stone that the castle was builded with was fetched from a quarry at Terrington two miles off. There is a park by the castle. This castle was well maintained by reason that the late Duke of Norfolk lay there ten years and since the Duke of Richmond.

Quadrangular castle of the northern type, licensed in 1382. The son of Richard III is buried in the nearby church.

Sherriff Hutton Number 2
SE 657662
York

Enclosure

12th C

Earthworks said to be dated from 1140

Skellow
SE 530104
Adwick le Street

Earthworks

Skelton
NZ 652193
Saltburn

Enclosure

12th C

de Brus

de Brus : Or, a saltire and chief gules

Castellarium Anglicaunum : Very large promontory site the flanking valleys having been widened into enormous ditches. Castle at the end with burgus in front. Said to have been originally built in the 11thC. Pulled down in 1788.

Skipsea
ER
TA 162551
Holderness

Motte and Bailey

12th C

de Bevrere, de Champagne, le Gros,

le Gros : Quarterly argent and azure, a bend sable

According to Leland : The Albermarls had also a castle or great manor place at Skipsea in Holderness, not far from the shore.

Le Patourel : enclosure with three arms and rounded element protruding to NW., part of which remains. Original caput (head) of Albermarle fee was Skipsea Brough c, ½ mile away. No other manor, or mention of later manor house known. Site, with wide moat round substantial hillock, is not typical. In 1271 increment of 2d a year appears among Cleton rents.

Powerful motte in centre of lake or mere when built, now drained. Causeway linked to large strong earthwork enclosure. Built in 11thC, ordered to be destroyed in 1221.

Skipton
SD 991520

Enclosure

12th C

According to Leland : The Earl of Albermarl and Holderness was the lord of Hedon (in Holderness) and also of Scipton(sic) in Craven at the same time.

Very strong stone castle built on a cliff, dates from 1131 - 40, with rebuild and additions in 1310 - 14. Similar to Skipsea, was ordered destroyed in 1221.

Besieged in ECW, towers reinforced to take artillery.

Skirpenbeck
SE 737580
York

Motte

de Chauncy

William de Chauncy, Baron Shiopenbeke : Gules, a cross pattee argent, on a chief or, a leopard passant azure.

Skirpenbeck Number 2
SE 750573
York

Moats

May have been defensive in nature.

Slingsby
NZ 696749
Helmsley

Fortified Lodge

14th C

de Mowbray, de Hastings 

Wyvill : Gules, fretty vair, a chief or

Lincence to crenelate granted to Hastings 1344. Close by much eroded earthworks may be the site of earlier castle.

Snape
SE 262844
Bedale

Courtyard Castle

15th C

According to Leland, Snape was then a "goodly castle in a valley longing to the Lorde Latimer and two or three parkes welle woddid abowt it. It is his (the lord Latimer's) chefe howse, and stondith a two mile from Great Tanfeld."

Northern quadrangular castle of the 15thC, much altered and modernised.

Sowerby
WR
Sowerby Bridge

de Warenne

de Warrene : Chequy or and azure

Little known

Spofforth
SE 360511
Harrogate

Fortified Manor

Percy

Percy : Azure, five fuzils conjoined in fess or

One of the most elaborate of fortified manor houses, it is said that the first manor house was erected within ten years of the Conquest and the surrounding land turned over to the raising and grazing of cattle and sheep. The existing ruin dates from the license to crenellate granted by Edward II in 1309. Henry Percy known as Hotspur supported Bolingbroke's claim on his father John O'Gaunt's estates which action resulted in the abdication and murder of king Richard II in 1399. Bolingbroke was crowned Henry IV, and by 1403 had alienated Hotspur and several other of his erstwhile supporters. The culmination of this antagonism was the death of Hotspur at the Battle of Shrewsbury and the death of the first Earl of Northumberland, Hotspur's father, at the Battle of Bramham Moor in 1409. Henry confiscated the Percy estates by an act of attainder and subsequently granted Spofforth to Sir Thomas Rokerby who had supported the king in the rebellion. The great userper was succeeded by his Noble son the warlike Harry V who in 1413 restored the Percys to their estates. On the 28/29th of March 1461, in a bluiding snow storm, was fought the bloody battle of Towton during the Wars of the Roses. Once more the Percys backed the wrong side and the 3rd earl was killed fighting for the Lancastrian cause. Victorious Yorkists stormed Spofforth and wasted both the house and the estate. It was some time before the house was restored, a further license to fortify being granted in 1559 at which time the house was made habitable again. The house was made over to Sir Sampson Ingilby the estate steward at the turn of the century. The end came with the Civil War when Spofforth was reduced to a ruin by Parliamentarian troops.

Spotbrough
WR
SE 542033
Cusworth Park

Motte

11th C

de Warrene, Fitz Willian

de Warenne : Chequy or and azure. :

FitzWilliam : Lozengy, argent and gules

Called Cusworth Castle Hill, this isolated motte stands in the south-west corner of Cusworth Park. The mound as it stands is 16ft high and 60ft by 70ft on the oval top. Little is known except that land at Cusworth was at Domesday divided between Roger de Busli and William de Warenne, though in later times it formed part of the de Warenne honour of Conisbrourgh.

Spurn Fort
Spurn Point
Holderness

Artillery forts

Napoleonic, WWI & WWII

Crown

Stainborough
SE316031
WR

Castle

Earthworks suggest circular enclosure 0.5k from Wentworth Castle 

Court Roll 1613 refers to the castle in ruins, which suggest a stone structure

Stainer Hall
SE 623311
Selby

Fortified Manor

14thC

Church

Licensed to crenellate granted 1365, site was the grange of Selby Abbey.

Was partly excavated see Med. Arch. vi-vii(1962-3)

Stockton in the Forest
SE 657584
York

Motte

Sutton upon Derwent
SE 710486
York

Mound

Le Patourel : St. Loys, A2(b). Building debris reported in E. enclosure. License to crenellate to Percy, 1293. Other moats.

Oval motte

14thC

Sir John Saher, John de Sutton

The hillock here described could easily be misidentified for the castle of Brancholme, which location this might be. The mound covers an area of 13/4 acres and had its own ditch, the whole rising out of the surrounding marshland. The castle might have been thrown up by John de Saher prior to 1200. In 1353 John de Sutton was fined for crenellating without license. The site is currently called Giant's Hill

Text compiled and edited by Richard Hayton

Heraldry rendered by Richard Hayton