Long Description:Weeting Castle is a 12th century ruin with a three story high tower
in Weeting, Norfolk, near Brandon.
Despite the name, it is not a castle but actually a fortified
manor house. It has a large open hall and an attached two-storey
chamber block.
There's a domed brick ice-house on the northwest corner of the
moat and a small car park next to the church.
The moat was added in the 14th century. The place is thought to be
abandoned in 1390. It is now owned by English Heritage.
Entry is free and the location is open all year for visitors.
Welcome to a place in history, where we look at the landmarks
that have put Norfolk on the map69: Weeting Castle
Another castle! Surely East Anglia was full of them… Weeting in
south Norfolk is not actually a castle, but a fortified manor
house. It may look like a crumbling ruin, but in its time there
would have been few more pleasant places to live in the county.
Built by a duke, earl or archbishop?
In the 1130s Hugh de Plais, a tenant of William de Warenne, Earl of
Surrey, started the construction of his family home. It was a good
time to be building in Norfolk. Warenne’s own state-of-the-art
construction at Castle Acre was well underway in these years, as
was the magnificent Castle Rising, built by the powerful d’Albinis
on the north-west coast of the county near Lynn. Over in Suffolk
Hugh Bigod was rebuilding his family’s castle at Framlingham in
stone. Weeting was a less grand affair – but it presents us with a
rare surviving example of a 12th century manor house. Although it
is now a ruin, the basic architecture can be reconstructed. This
was how the lesser gentry lived, as opposed to the great magnates
of state, the ‘tenants in chief’ of the king.
By the mid-12th century the Norman elite who had conquered along
with King William were well established in England, and stamping
their authority, sense of security and growing wealth and taste on
the land with a series of grand buildings.
Was anything there before Hugh’s manor house?
Recent excavations have unearthed evidence of a Saxon settlement
dating from at least the 10th century.
Ditches, burnt daub, post-holes and pottery and a coin have been
dated from this era. This should not come as a surprise; the area
had been a hive of industry since prehistoric times, with the
mysterious Grimes Graves flint mines having been worked since at
least 3,000BC.
Norfolk was a well settled county before the Normans came, with
great East Anglian landowners like Archbishop of Canterbury Stigand
owning many manors; the new feudal owners often just demolished
what was there already and built on top of it. Weeting is listed in
the Domesday Book, spelt ‘Wetynge’ – meaning wet fields.
What was the house like?
Made of mortared flint rubble with stone dressings, it was
originally designed as a free-standing, two-storeyed building, with
a lesser hall and chamber above. Its design was copied essentially
from Warenne’s Castle Acre. Later in the 1100s the halls were
combined to create a more impressive aisled hall open to a timbered
roof. The hall was the most important room, hosting guests and the
scene for important events. Each side of the hall supported benches
with a dais and table at the far end. Next to the hall was a
service area, complete with pantry and buttery. On the other side
of the open courtyard a free-standing kitchen was later built for
preparing animal and other foodstuffs. This no doubt smelly and
messy part of the house was hidden from view by a wall, so genteel
visitors crossing the moat to come in to the hall wouldn’t have to
see it.
A moat? So the house was fortified!
Historians think the moat, added in the 13th century, was less a
defensive device than an ornamental status symbol. The de Plais
family were living the good life in this part of Norfolk, and they
wanted friends and neighbours to think well of them by displaying
their wealth. The moat, which survives but is now dry, is about 2m
(6ft) deep and up to 10m (30ft) wide. The family had their own
private chambers beyond the hall.
Divided into three storeys, with a central fireplace, it had its
own latrine block which was the last word in the luxury hygiene of
its day; three cubicles drained into the room at ground level,
cleaned through a small door near the moat.
Lovely. How long did the family live there?
During the late 14th century the house came into the possession of
the Howard family. This ambitious clan eventually captured the
title of the dukes of Norfolk, coming to national prominence during
the rule of Henry VIII. With a great many properties making up
their portfolio, Weeting had a low priority and was abandoned by
about 1390. In time it was incorporated in to the grounds of the
now demolished Weeting Hall, and became an ornamental, romantic
ruin for the owners to show off. A domed icehouse was built during
the later 18th century. These buildings were used to store ice
throughout the year, before the invention of the refrigerator, and
can often be found in large houses of the time, though few
remain.
Anything else?
During the 1930s Weeting Hall was remodelled as an instructional
centre by the Government, taking in young, long-term unemployed men
from areas of high unemployment during the Depression and giving
them a three-month crash course in heavy manual work, with mixed
results. During the second world war it served as a hospital for
wounded Gurkha and Indian soldiers.
It was demolished in 1954. Pepper Hill, on the edge of the
village, supposedly got its name from an incident in which Oliver
Cromwell’s soldiers used their artillery to ‘pepper’ the castle.
The story may be just a legend; most places in East Anglia like to
boast of being knocked about by Cromwell at some stage in their
history! Nineteenth century novelist Charles Kingsley portrayed
Weeting Castle as the Norman headquarters in his romanticised
account of the legendary fenland hero Hereward the Wake.
The site, managed by English Heritage, is free to enter. Weeting
is two miles north of Brandon on the B1106, but the castle is
poorly signposted. Turn right at the village school and go down a
sunken lane.
Weeting Castle is next to the Church of Weeting St Mary’s.
Website: www.english-heritage.org.uk