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Description: | The earthworks and other structural remains of Castle Acre, located in the southern part of the modern village of Castle Acre. The remains of the castle, which are also Listed Grade I and are in the care of the Secretary of State, include a roughly circular upper ward, with an adjoining lower ward on the south east side and a roughly triangular barbican to the east. The upper ward is surrounded by a deep ditch and an inner bank surmounted by a curtain wall, and contains the standing ruins of a massive masonry building. The outer ward is also surrounded by a ditch, with internal banks on the east and west sides, and fragmentary remains of a wall crowning the banks and closing the southern end. The first stone building constructed in the centre of the upper ward was a two-storey residential block, something later generations would call a country house, built in the late 11th century. Originally, the building stood in the centre of a courtyard surrounded by a ditch and bank which survives as a buried feature beneath the later earthworks. Major alterations to the house occured around 1140 and were designed to convert the building into a keep. The associated strengthening of the surrounding defences included the enlargement of the ditch, the raising of the bank and the construction of a curtain wall of chalk rubble faced with flint. A second period of development at the castle saw the area of the keep halved and the perimeter defences of the upper ward strengthened yet again. The perimeter bank was heightened and on top of the existing curtain wall, corresponding to the area of heightened bank, was built a second curtain of solid flint. This change of plan in the conversion of the keep was either for reasons of economy, or for the need to speed completion of the defences in troubled times, perhaps after the rebellion of the Earl of Essex in 1143. Scheduled, listed and in guardianship. | Subjects: | Curtain Wall Defence Ditch Domestic Wall Painting Monastic Dwelling Castle Barbican Gatehouse Bank (Earthwork) Shell Keep Motte And Bailey Keep | Source: | English Heritage - Viewfinder | Creator: | National Monuments Record | Identifier: | http://pastscape.english-heritage.org.uk... | Language: | en | Go to resource |
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