Fenny Castle

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Mound of Fenny Castle

Fenny Castle is a ruined castle in the parish Wookey in the English county of Somerset . It is considered a Scheduled Monument .

The ruins of the Motte are located on a natural lias hill, about 20 meters above the surrounding flat land on the edge of the Somerset Levels . Such places were usually chosen for castles in the lowlands.

It is not known who originally built the castle, but its construction may be related to Anarchy , a civil war in the reign of King Stephen that his cousin, Empress Matilda fought. In 1327 the castle belonged to William atte Castle . By 1480, Fenny Castle was already described as a ruin by the chronicler and historian William Worcester . He saw the floor plans "of all the houses and offices there". In the 19th century, quarry workers found 20 skeletons dated to an unknown period before the castle was built.

A hamlet of the parish Wookey was named after the castle . The hamlet of Castle is about 1.6 km southwest of the main village. A stone cross was still found there in 1839, indicating the importance of the hamlet.

Little remains of the castle's masonry, but there is evidence that the ruin was used as a quarry. Today the mound is covered with grass and scrub. Some trees also grow there. But The Archeology of Somerset says that there are still “interesting and easily visible earthworks ” there.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Fenny Castle . In: Pastscape - National Monument Record . English Heritage. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
  2. ↑ a b Fenny Castle . In: Somerset Historic Environment Record . Somerset County Council. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 5, 2016. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / webapp1.somerset.gov.uk
  3. ^ OH Creighton: Castles and Landscapes: Power, Community and Fortification in Medieval England . 2002, p. 38.
  4. ^ Robert Dunning: Somerset Castles . Somerset Books, Tiverton 1995. ISBN 0-86183-278-7 . P. 58.
  5. ^ William Phelps: The History and Antiquities of Somersetshire . Part 1: The parochial history continued. The city and cathedral of Wells; the hundreds of Wells Forum and Whitstone . 1839, p. 172. Retrieved April 5, 2016.
  6. ↑ Michael Aston, Ian Burrow: The Archeology of Somerset: a review to 1500 AD . 1982. pp. 9-12.

Coordinates: 51 ° 11 ′ 2 ″  N , 2 ° 42 ′ 19 ″  W.