Brinklow Castle

Brinklow Castle, Warwickshire - Mound

Brinklow Castle, Warwickshire - Motte

Brinklow Castle known locally as "The Tump" was in the village of Brinklow in the county of Warwickshire between Coventry and Rugby.

Brinklow seems to have first been used as a prehistoric barrow thus the old English of hlāw in the name Brinklow, which was later modified by Earl Alberic (Earl Aubrey) the first Norman lord of Brinklow, but he left his Earldom in Northumbria and thus lost his lands in England before the writing of the Domesday, however his land and title had not been reassigned by the time of the Domesday recording thus there is a good record of his land holdings. Brinklow is a motte and bailey castle of grand size: the motte is 12m high and its original bailey was 121m wide by 152m long, later it seems that Brinklow’s bailey was modified to enclose a smaller area by cutting a ditch and forming a rampart in the middle of the bailey: this seems to suggest that Brinklow slowly declined.

References

• Fry, Plantagenet Somerset, The David & Charles Book of Castles, David & Charles, 1980. ISBN 0-7153-7976-3
• [Creighton C, 2002: Castles and Landscapes Power, Community and Fortification in Medieval England. Equinox, Great Britain]
• [Chatwin P, 1955: Brandon Castle, Warwickshire, Birmingham and Warwickshire archaeology society, 73, 63-83]
• [Holt, J. 1972: Politics and Property in Early Medieval England, Past and Present, 57, 3-52]
• [Williams A (Ed), Martin GH (Ed), 2003: Domesday book, A complete Translation. Penguin books, England]