Bourne Castle

THE TRADITION is that Bourne did have a castle, built here after the Norman invasion and periodic investigations of the site suggest that it had a moat and drawbridge and an inner bailey. Some accounts say that it was built for the Saxon lords, and that Hereward the Wake was born here, but in that case it would have been recorded in the Domesday Book but was not and so must have been built after 1086.

By the 17th century the castle had fallen into ruins and much of the stone had been taken by townspeople to build cottages and barns. When Oliver Cromwell set up a garrison here for his men during the English Civil War of 1642-51, his artillery fired upon the remains from the rising ground to the west and that was the end of the castle. All that we see today is the series of grassy mounds and hollows to indicate where the ramparts were once situated although the section of river that runs nearby is believed to have been the moat.

Some of the stone has survived because it was used to build the Shippon Barn which can still be seen in the Wellhead Gardens with two of the original arrow slits from the castle in the walls. The word shippen is an Old English term meaning cattle shed or cowhouse although the building is used today as a meeting place by the scouts and guides.

The Shippon barn today