Bourne Castle

THE OFFICIAL VIEW

From Gary Taylor
the Heritage Trust for Lincolnshire

Bourne is possibly first mentioned in the late 10th century. Referred to as Burnan the name is derived from the Old Norse brunnr meaning a spring or stream (Cameron 1998, 18). Doubts exist about the Burnan mentioned as being in Lincolnshire and it is now thought to refer to a lost place in Oxfordshire (Sawyer 1998, 232). At the time of the subsequent Domesday Survey, c. 1086, the land was held by Ivo Taillebois, Alfred of Lincoln, Oger the Breton, Robert of Stafford and Colegrim and contained a church with a priest, 4 watermills, 49 acres of meadow and extensive tracts of woodland (Foster and Longley 1976).

The castle is generally believed to date from the mid 11th century when the smaller Domesday holdings had been consolidated into a single manor (Cathcart-King 1983, 266). The construction of the castle may have been undertaken by Baldwin de Clare, successor to Oger the Breton, who founded nearby Bourne Abbey in or before 1138. This suggestion is on the basis that the construction of the abbey brought about a complete re-planning of the town including the construction of the castle (Hayes and Lane 1992, 140).

The existence of a castle in Bourne is first documented in the Pipe Roll of 1190 (Roffe nd, 2). It is again mentioned in the 14th century although no specific description of the castle is given. However, by the mid 16th century, John Leland, the King's Antiquarian, described the castle as 'There appere grete diches, and the dungeon hil of an auncient castel', implying it was in a ruinous state (Toulmin-Smith 1907, 25).

Bourne Castle is also mentioned in the 17th century at the time of the English Civil War (1642-46) when the castle was apparently garrisoned by parliamentarian troops (Birkbeck 1970, 13). It is not known if this implies that elements of the castle were still standing at this time. Unconfirmed tradition has it that the Parliamentarian troops were ordered to slight the castle to punish Bourne for its loyalty to the King (Venables 1889, 7).

Limited previous archaeological work has been undertaken at the castle. There are records of two antiquarian excavations in 1861 and 1889. In 1861, the gatehouse, flanked by two circular towers, and the drawbridge pit was revealed along with surviving timbers (Trollope 1861, x). The gatehouse was partly revealed again in 1889 (Venables 1889, 6). Electric cabling work undertaken across the castle in 1960 revealed medieval pottery of 13th century date and the remains of one stone building (Birkbeck 1970, 14). More recently, water pipe trenches identified an arm of the moat running north from St. Peter’s Pool which had been subsequently used to water horses (Dymond 1996, 4). The remains of Bourne Castle have been afforded Scheduled Ancient Monument status (English Heritage 1996, 19).

Medieval remains found in recent (2001) investigations comprise a rampart, a number of stone walls, a definite moat and a possible moat or pond. The mounded deposits at the northeastern end of the pipe trench, interpreted as a rampart, may also be upcast from excavating the western arm of the Bourne Eau. Four roughly parallel walls were recorded in the northeast corner of the bailey and perhaps represent two structures.

At the southwest end of the trench, the moat was identified together with an inner moat or pond. This inner moat seems unusual and is not reflected in the earthworks present at the site. Apart from a rubble structure adjacent to the moat, no other buildings were recorded in this vicinity. Between the moat and the structures at the northeast end of the trench, the bailey appears to be largely devoid of archaeological features. Such an arrangement is characteristic of many castles where buildings would hug, or were built against, the curtain wall, leaving the bailey open.

Although the scope of this investigation was limited by the width of the trench, it is possible to offer some interpretation of the castle. This is detailed in the Figure and incorporates evidence from earlier investigations at the castle.

Birkbeck, J.D., 1970, History of Bourne
Cameron, K., 1998, A Dictionary of Lincolnshire Place Names, English Place-Name Society Popular Series 1
Cathcart-King, D.J., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum: an Index and Bibliography of the Castles in England, Wales and the Islands, Vol. I
Dymond, M., 1996, Archaeological Watching Brief of a Borehole and Pipe Trench on land adjacent to Bourne Castle, Bourne, Lincolnshire (BES 94), unpublished APS report
English Heritage, 1996, County List of Scheduled Monuments: Lincolnshire
Foster, C.W., and Longley, T., 1976, The Lincolnshire Domesday and the Lindsey Survey, The Lincoln Record Society 19
Hayes, P.P. and Lane, T.W., 1992, The Fenland Project, Number 5: Lincolnshire Survey, The South-West Fens, East Anglian Archaeology 55
Roffe, D., nd, Bourne Topography, unpublished manuscript
Sawyer, P., 1998, Anglo-Saxon Lincolnshire, History of Lincolnshire III
Toulmin-Smith, L., 1907, The Itinerary of John Leland in or about the Years 1535-1543, Vol. I
Trollope, E., 1861, ‘Hereward the Saxon Patriot’, Lincolnshire Architectural and Archaeological Society, Reports and Papers Vol. VI
Venables, E., 1889, ‘Bourn: Its Castle and Its Abbey’, Lincolnshire Architectural and Archaeological Society, Reports and Papers, Vol. XX

NOTE: This information was supplied on request during the latest controversy over the existence
of Bourne Castle during the summer of 2005.