http://boar.org.uk/obpwxs7BourneCastle(pic20 Latest edit 6 Jun 2009

The Bourne Archive Gallery

© 2006 R.J.PENHEY

Figure 20. Bourne Castle. Regrettably, this picture was taken on the end of a film.

· The later (ca. 1280) inner bailey gatehouse is partially on the clear picture in front of the tree. Its pit for a late 13^th century (C13), see-saw type drawbridge shows green. Just beyond it, the inside of its southern D-shaped turret shows green.

· Beyond that, the archaeology is obscured by the parch mark of the roots of the tree but beyond that again, the stone, C13 curtain wall runs straight towards a tangential meeting with the motte. The parch mark of the latter’s late C13 revetment curves round it. The revetment shows very clearly in the results of Hibbitt’s survey.

· Another, less clearly formed parch mark appears half way up the picture on the left. In damper conditions, the masonry at this point causes moles to burrow up into the turf. It seems to represent part of the C12 gatehouse.

· The feature indicated as the old pisé wall is more enigmatic. Its parch mark is faint as is its appearance in Hibbitt’s resistance survey but it lies on the line of the original, pisé curtain wall (C12) but it is also in the position of some sort of building, indicated by the early nineteenth century estate maps. (examples: 1, 2.)

· The causeway superseded the medieval bridge but was in position before 1645. (RJP interpretation of Cope Faulkner’s section)

· Cope-Faulkner’s section, cut after this photograph was taken, runs across the foreground, just clear of the nearer turret of the later gatehouse. The foreground consists of back-fill of the October 1645 re-cut of the ca. 1140 inner bailey moat.

(Picture date September 1991)