Oxford Castle

Oxford Castle is a large, partly ruined medieval castle on the western side of central Oxford in Oxfordshire, England. Most of the original moated, wooden motte and bailey castle was replaced in stone in the late 12th or early 13th century and the castle played an important role in the conflict known as the Anarchy. In the 14th century the military value of the castle diminished and the site came to be used primarily for county administration and as a prison. The surviving rectangular St George's Tower is now believed to pre-date the remainder of the castle and to have been a watch tower associated with the original Saxon west gate of the city. Most of the castle was destroyed in the English Civil War and by the 18th century the remaining buildings had become Oxford's local prison. A new prison complex was built on the site from 1785 onwards and expanded in 1876; this became HM Prison Oxford. The prison closed in 1996 and was redeveloped as a hotel and visitor attraction. The medieval remains of the castle including the motte, St George's Tower and crypt, are Grade I listed buildings and a Scheduled Monument.

History

Construction

According to the Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis (Abingdon Chronicle), Oxford Castle was built by the Norman baron Robert D'Oyly the elder from 1071 to 1073. D'Oyly had arrived in England with William I the Conqueror in the Norman Conquest of England, and William granted him extensive lands in Oxfordshire. Oxford had been stormed in the invasion with considerable damage, and William directed D'Oyly to build a castle to dominate the town. In due course D'Oyly became the foremost landowner in Oxfordshire and was confirmed with a hereditary royal constableship for Oxford Castle. Oxford Castle is not among the 48 recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, but not every castle in existence at the time was recorded in the survey. D'Oyly (d'Oilly)'s Oxford holdings are, however, mentioned in the Domesday Book as "Meadow 30 acres. 1 mill, value 10 shillings. The mill mentioned is presumably the Castle Mill, formerly adjacent to the still surviving St. George's Tower, rebuilt in 1781 before eventually being demolished in 1930. D'Oyly positioned his castle to the west side of the town, using the natural protection of a stream off the River Thames on the far side of the castle, now called Castle Mill Stream, and diverting the stream to produce a moat. There has been debate as to whether there was an earlier English fortification on the site, but whilst there is archaeological evidence of earlier Anglo-Saxon habitation there is no conclusive evidence of fortification. Oxford Castle was an "urban castle", overlying a portion of the Saxon town wall, but it remains uncertain whether local buildings were demolished to make room for it. Poore et al. (2009) give a suggested street plan of the town in late Saxon times (their figure 4) showing the then town wall with its north, west, south and east gates; at the north gate is the Saxon tower now associated with the church of St Michael at the North Gate, while the west gate is occupied by the apparently Saxon tower of St. George's, which is now believed to have subsequently been incorporated into the fabric of the later Norman castle.

The initial castle was probably a large motte and bailey, copying the plan of the castle that D'Oyly had already built 12 miles (19 km) away at Wallingford. The motte was originally about 60 feet (18 m) high and 40 feet (12 m) wide, constructed like the bailey from layers of gravel and strengthened with clay facing. There has been debate over the sequencing of the motte and the bailey: it has been suggested that the bailey may have built first (thus utilising the pre-existing St. George's Tower as the first keep) which would make the initial castle design a ringwork rather than a motte and bailey. By the late 12th to early 13th century, the original palisade walls and wooden keep had been replaced in stone. The new curtain wall incorporated St George's Tower, which is built of coral rag stone, 30 by 30 feet (9 m × 9 m) at the base and tapering significantly toward the top for stability. This was the tallest of the castle's towers, and is now believed to be a survival from late Saxon times (c. 1020) as a watch tower associated with the west gate of the Saxon city. Evidence that this tower is Saxon in origin and thus pre-dates the castle itself is presented in Poore et al. (2009), who comment that "a single, massive stone tower does not seem to belong within the outer defences of an earth-and-timber castle", and other sources have concurred on architectural grounds, also noting that its orientation does not match that of the remainder of the castle, and that its height would have originally afforded an extensive view over the city, but which would have been superseded (and in fact, blocked) with the construction of the castle motte. The date of the remaining towers is uncertain although the southernmost, round tower, of which the base still remains, is dated to 1235 in various documentary sources, including Woolnoth's The Ancient Castles of England and Wales of 1825; in at least one source, it is referred to as "Henry III's Tower". Inside the walls the buildings included a chapel with a crypt attached to St George’s Tower, which may be on the site of a previous church. The chapel originally had a nave, chancel and an apsidal sanctuary. It was a typical early Norman design with solid pillars and arches. In 1074 D'Oyly and his close friend, Roger d'Ivry had endowed a chapel with a college of priests, which is presumed to be the structure in question; at an early stage it acquired a dedication to Saint George. As detailed below, the crypt of this chapel still survives, albeit in a new location within the castle, having been moved and reconstructed from its original materials in 1794. The ten-sided stone shell keep, 58 feet (18 m), constructed in the 13th century to replace an earlier wooden structure, closely resembled those of Tonbridge and Arundel Castles. The keep enclosed a number of buildings, leaving an inner courtyard only 22 feet (7 m) across. Within the keep, stairs led 20 feet (6 m) down to an underground 12 feet (3.7 m) wide stone chamber, with an Early English hexagonal vault and a 54 feet (16 m) deep well providing water in the event of a siege.

Role in the Anarchy and Barons War

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