Deddington Castle

Deddington Castle is a set of huge grassy earthworks in Deddington. It began as an eleventh-century motte and bailey linked to Odo of Bayeux, half-brother of William the Conqueror, and its ramparts still rise up to 15m. There are no walls to see, and it is free. Come for the scale of the banks and a walk round them.

The story of Deddington Castle

The castle was important for little more than two centuries, and for most of the time since it has been a quarry and then a field. English Heritage records Saxon buildings beneath it and Odo holding the site at the Domesday survey. The Victoria County History is more careful about the builder: the castle existed before 1100 and may have been ordered by Odo, whose most valuable Oxfordshire manor this was.

A bank and ditch enclosed the bailey, and a motte went up on its eastern edge. Around 1160 a stone building replaced a timber one. By the end of the twelfth century the motte had been levelled and a stone curtain wall with towers and a gatehouse put up, perhaps by William de Chesney. Inside were a hall, kitchens, a solar, stables, a well and a chapel, which the excavators traced from the foundations.

It did not last. By 1277 the record calls it an old demolished castle. In 1310 it was a weak castle containing a chamber and a dovecot. From the end of the thirteenth century it was quarried for building stone, and in 1377 the canons of Bicester were buying dressed stone from its walls. Excavation found no repairs after the thirteenth century.

The Gaveston question

The castle's one famous prisoner may never have been inside it. Piers Gaveston, Edward II's favourite, reached Deddington as a captive in June 1312, and the Earl of Warwick seized him there and took him to his death on Blacklow Hill. Historic England's entry says the castle was used to hold him. The Victoria County History says plainly that he was lodged in the rectory house, and Deddington's own history group agrees, naming it as what is now Castle House. Charles I also slept in the parsonage in 1644, after Cropredy Bridge, and not in the castle, which was long gone.

From ruin to sports field

The site was pasture and timber in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. From the mid nineteenth century the natural amphitheatre of the bailey drew people to play there, with a thatched pavilion for a gentry club's balls, and a professional in the lodge supervising cricket and archery. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners later sold it to the parish council, and it remains a park and sports field. The parish council owns the outer bailey, and English Heritage looks after the inner bailey.

What to look for

Look at the height of the banks first: they are the reason to come. The eastern corner is where the motte stood. Excavations in the 1940s and 1950s and again in the late 1970s uncovered foundations, but they are back below ground, so a visitor sees only the humps. A second bailey runs down the slope towards the stream, mostly visible from the air.

Visiting Deddington Castle

English Heritage says it is open at any reasonable time in daylight, free, with dogs welcome on leads. The ground is uneven and sloping, so wear decent shoes in wet weather. It does not allow smoking, barbecues or naked flames. If you want standing medieval walls, this is not your castle, but Broughton Castle is a short drive away.

Getting there

The entrance is on Castle Street, close to the junction with Hopcraft Lane, between two pillars. English Heritage lists no car park, so park in the village with care.

Nearby

The natural follow-on is The Unicorn Inn, in the village. St Mary's Church in Adderbury is the next stop north, and the Edgehill battlefield tells the next chapter of the area's wars.