The Bourne Archive Gallery

Figure 17. Plan of the features of Bourne Castle as shown in the Exeter Estate record book of ca. 1827. The page which will have dealt in detail with the plots along West Street is missing so this is the best we have. The plan is similar to one of 1826, belonging to the Bourne Abbots Estate and if Fowler’s copy is a guide, to that of the Parker Estate, centred on Morton. They seem not to arise directly from the survey of the Enclosure Commissioners of the 1766 Bourne Enclosure Act. (Photograph date July 2006 from a photocopy. The book is in the care of Bourne Civic Society.)

Pink indicates land of the Exeter Estate. Green is held copyhold of he Exeter Estate, brown is roads and blue, water.

Plot 84 was the inner bailey and motte.

Plots 87, 88 & 89 were the (outer) East Bailey of which the gatehouse was above the number of plot 88.

Plots 85 & 86 were the middle bailey. The division between East and middle bailies was in the vicinity of plot 64.

Plot 83 was part of the defensive lake in the river’s natural valley.

Plot 68 and much of plot 82 were part of the pomœrium or pomery.

Plot 82 west of 83 was an artificial extension of the lake above the head of the valley.

Plot 82 south of this and plot 83 was a simple hornwork across the lake from the keep.