Bourne Castle – fact or fiction?

AN EXAMINATION OF THE EVIDENCE

by REX NEEDLE

A plan of  the castle drawn up in 1861

The controversy  over the existence of Bourne Castle surfaces perennially for although it is part of our tradition, hard evidence has been practically non-existent and so the argument has become a regular occurrence.

The stumbling block appears to be the perception we have of a castle, a word which conjures up visions of a battlemented fortification similar to that we see in historical films and theme parks whereas the building in Bourne would more likely to have been a fortified manor house and few people would dispute this.

Periodically, the diehards surface expounding the same theory that Bourne once possessed a castle similar to that of fantasy and imagination and although this would be an asset to our history, a more modest edifice was undoubtedly the case.

As the site has never been properly excavated, folklore overshadows the facts. There have been desultory attempts to discover what lies below the surface but all have proved to be inconclusive. The reputation of a traditional Bourne or Hereward’s Castle therefore depends entirely on the enthusiasm of archaeologists and others anxious to authenticate their beliefs but there have been no firm discoveries to support the theory although there is sufficient documentation to disprove it.

The primary source is the Domesday Book of 1086, the great land survey ordered by William I, and had there been a castle on this spot it would most certainly have been included but it was not. This review of the country’s holdings during the early 11th century is now freely available for research whereas it was inaccessible in times past, and indeed I have my own copy. The survey was a meticulous investigation to record everything of value in England at that time and considered to be so comprehensive that one chronicler wrote: "So very thoroughly did William have the enquiry carried out that there was not a single piece of land, not even an ox, cow or pig, which escaped its notice."

It is therefore inconceivable that a castle would not have been spotted by the invigilators who did include other important buildings in Bourne such as a church and three watermills.

Similar evidence is against the possibility of a castle being erected after the Norman Conquest because buildings of such significance were invariably the work of the most important man in the locality and that was Baldwin Fitzgilbert, Lord of the Manor of Bourne, but from 1138 he was too busy with the Abbey Church to take on another large project which he could not have afforded anyway. He even had to suspend operations on the church after being wounded and taken prisoner at the Battle of Lincoln on 2nd February 1141 and, according to the custom of the time, had to pay a large ransom for his release and this seriously depleted his financial resources and the church remained unfinished when he died.

Furthermore, the building of Norman castles is well documented and 32 were located at strategic points in Lincolnshire during the years following the Conquest, the nearest to Bourne being Castle Bytham, eight miles to the south west, but after that time they gave way to fortified settlements and towns. In fact, there is little historical evidence of the presence of the Normans in Bourne except for the tales of old chroniclers and later Victorian novelists.

It has not been established where the real Hereward met his end and it has been suggested that he died in France while another apocryphal account relates that he was killed by the Normans during a skirmish in Bourne Wood but in less than a hundred years the legend of Hereward was in full cry in the Estorie des Engles by Geoffrey Gaimar (circa 1140) and the Gesta Herewardii Saxonis or Deeds of Hereward the Saxon from around the same period. Songs were being sung about Hereward in the taverns and in the 13th century people were visiting a ruined wooden structure in the fens which became known as Hereward's Castle but interest soon died out as he was supplanted by another outlaw hero, Robin Hood, as a symbol of resistance to oppression.

The foundations of the current thesis about the description of the castle were laid by John Leland (1502-1550), chaplain to Henry VIII and an enthusiastic antiquarian. Until his time, all ancient monuments were totally disregarded and in an attempt the redress this imbalance, the king commissioned him in 1533 to seek out England's antiquities by exploring the libraries of all cathedrals, abbeys, priories, colleges and other institutions where old records were stored. In this research, Leland spent over six years, from 1540 to 1546, travelling throughout England, visiting the remains of ancient buildings and monuments of every kind and on the completion of his work he presented the results to Henry, under the title of a New Year's Gift. In it, he says that the castle was "very greatly ruined with little but earthworks remaining". His description, the most telling challenge to the existence of a castle, is reproduced here verbatim:

There appere grete ditches, and the dungeon hil of an auncient castel agayne the west end of the priorie, sumwhat distance from it as on the other side of the streate backwarde: it longidd to the Lord Wake, and much service to the Wake fe is done to this castelle; and every feodarie knowith his station and place of service.

A further account appears in a history of Aveland published by John Moore in 1809, based on the manuscript of Peak, a gentleman traveller and antiquarian, writing about the towns in Kesteven in the late 17th century, and this description was far more imaginative and has been used as the basis of all future accounts:

The castelle of Brunne ys a verrye ancyent portlie castelle scytewate neare Peterspoole, it contaynes the principal wardes. On the north side ys ye porter’s lodge, wch ys now reuinoose and in decaye by reasone ye floors of ye upper house ys decayed, and very necessarie to be repayred. The dungeon ys sett of a little moate with men’s handes, and for the moste parte as yt were square. It ys a fare and prattie buildings wth IV square toures. Rounde about ye same dungeon upon ye roofe of ye said toures, ys tryme walkes and a fare prospect of the Fenes. And in ye said dungeon is ye halle, chamberes and all other manner of houses of offices for ye lorde and his traine. The southe syde therof servethe for ye lordes and ladies lodginges; and underneighe them ys ye prisone, and wyne celler, wth ye shollorie. Over the moate yt surrounds ye castelle ys a fare drawe bridge,ye moate ys verie fresh and deipe. Ther ys also a fare parke belonging ye castelle.

The 19th century and the growth of popular reading brought a fresh wave of tales about historical characters, the backgrounds drawn from the old chronicles that had been written down from folklore and hearsay, what we call today the oral tradition, and these thrilling stories added to the legend of Hereward and his castle. Among them were Count Robert of Paris (1832) by Sir Walter Scott, Charles Macfarlane in The Camp of Refuge (1844) together with A Child's History of England by Charles Dickens (1852-54). In 1865 came the most popular of them all, Hereward the Wake by Charles Kingsley, written while staying at the vicarage at Edenham, near Bourne. All of these stories were further enhanced by Christopher Marlowe in his highly colourful book Legends of the Fenland People (1926), an exemplar of these romanticised tales, written in the tradition of the old chroniclers, investing our hero with that unconquerable spirit of patriotism that still pervades current thinking on the subject. The old days live again, national unity, loyalty and betrayal, and we are hurried on by their adventures, inspired by the undying hope of our brave hero for we are in Boy's Own land and Bourne Castle is at its centre.

Pottery from various periods has been found in the Wellhead area and this supports the indisputable fact that a community lived here from the earliest times. But most of what is repeated today as proof for a castle emanates from what was described as an archaeological dig in 1861 that became the yardstick for subsequent investigations. This event purported to have found a stone gatehouse flanked by two towers and a drawbridge but a search through the archives reveals a very different story. The dig during the summer of that year was merely a sideshow, a diversion laid on for visitors attending the annual two-day meeting of the Lincoln Diocesan Architectural Society and consisted of a few men with shovels who did little more than lift off the surface soil which was replaced when the event ended. There was a carnival atmosphere in the town, the site was covered by a marquee for visitors who were given romanticised lectures on the history of Hereward’s Castle and a public tea while a brass band played for their entertainment and horse-drawn carriages stood by to take them on excursions around the district.

Hardly the stuff of serious archaeology yet the famous map showing a fortified castle stems from this event. It was drawn up by an artist with a vivid imagination, James Fleming, who did not attend, from drawings provided by a local enthusiast, Mr Robert Parker, of Morton, and has since been reproduced in several publications over the years to perpetuate the legend of Bourne Castle, notably by Joseph J Davies (1856-1920), headmaster of the Bourne Board or Council School [now the Abbey Road Primary School], in his Historic Bourne (1909), still surprisingly quoted as a factual source even though he insisted that the castle was once home of the saintly Lady Godiva who he claims was Hereward’s mother. I wonder what the good burghers of Coventry would make of that.

The theory that certain stones built into the end of a nearby barn were the exterior parts of crossbow slits that had once been part of the castle walls also stems from this event. These stones can still be seen today in what is now the Shippon Barn that stands close to the footpath across the Wellhead Gardens but their provenance is suspect, the stone, particularly in the so-called crossbow slits, having little appearance of the age required to fit this premise and most probably came as salvage from elsewhere, as was the practice of the period.

The circular waterway system contiguous to the Wellhead Gardens is also interpreted as the remains of a moat and it certainly resembles the water-filled ditch surrounding a castle if that is what you are looking for but a more likely explanation is that the river was diverted near its source to provide power for a second watermill located on land behind what is now West Street, known latterly as Cliffe’s Mill and demolished circa 1910.

Subsequent "excavations" cited, particularly by Lincolnshire Heritage, anxious to preserve its niche market and corresponding jobs, all financed with public money, were not in fact scientific examinations but merely a watching brief by one of their archaeologists whenever excavations took place in the Wellhead area. For instance, electrical cables were laid in 1960 when items of 13th century pottery were unearthed together with indications of a substantial stone structure but the location was recorded as being "within the castle grounds". In 1996, a similar examination purported to have uncovered "the remains of the castle's defensive moat" and a map was prepared showing how the castle was laid out, a document that bore an uncanny resemblance to the imaginative artist's impression from 1861.

In 2001, we are told that "the most recent excavations at the site" uncovered one of the castle ramparts, a number of stone walls and the definite outline of a moat. "Four roughly parallel walls were also uncovered in the north east area of the castle compound as well as late Saxon pottery", claims Lincolnshire Heritage [Stamford Mercury, Friday 2nd September 2005].

This particular report interests me most because I happened to be present and there was no such occurrence. The facts of the matter are that in October of that year, a 200 yard pipeline was laid from St Peter's Pool to the Bourne Eau in that small pool near the Shippon Barn where the mallard and moorhen gather. The work was carried out by contractors acting for the Black Sluice Internal Drainage Board, instructed by Bourne United Charities that administer the Wellhead Gardens, with the object of regulating the water supply from the pool into the river during dry spells and to disperse the build up of silt and mud that had been hampering the flow.

The only excavations carried out were by the small mechanical digger that ploughed a narrow furrow, perhaps 18" wide, between the two points to allow the sections of pipes to be dropped in and joined up. An archaeologist was in attendance on some days and I spoke to him frequently (as I did to the contractors who consisted of one man and a lad) and although he was busy with his clipboard most days, it is difficult to reconcile any discoveries he might have made with the report in the Stamford Mercury on 2nd September 2005. The odd thing is that if this "excavation" was of such tremendous importance, why was it not reported by the local newspapers at the time, yet not a line was used by any of them. The only account of the occurrence appeared in my Diary of Saturday 13th October 2001 that is still available in this archive. Such is the stuff of local history.

The existence of a castle on this spot therefore relies on assumption and opinion instead of evidence and excavation. A few remnants of masonry and pottery do not establish the authenticity of an ancient monument. There may be stonework beneath the surface of the Wellhead Gardens but it is more likely to be that from dwellings and other buildings which comprised the settlement that sprang up around the source of water at St Peter's Pool rather than a battlemented fortification similar to those we now see in Disneyland.

By all means we should cling to our ancient legends and traditions and Hereward’s Castle is high on that list but in doing so, we should not ignore the facts.

NOTE: A shorter version of this article appeared in The Local newspaper
on Friday 9th September 2005.

WRITTEN SEPTEMBER 2005

See also

A enthusiast's appraisal     Hereward the Wake and the barony of Bourne

Return to

Bourne Castle