Eshott Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Eshott Castle today refers to an archaeological site rather than a standing building: the remains of a moated medieval fortified house, set on low ground at the confluence of two streams, the Longdike Burn and the Eshott Burn, in the civil parish of Thirston, in the heart of Northumberland. The site can be read as a sub-rectangular platform measuring about 55 by 44 metres, surrounded by a ditch about six metres wide, in the middle of undulating pasture. The interest of the site lies in its precise documentary history: a royal licence to crenellate granted in 1310 to Roger Mauduit, then the mention of a "Castrum de Eshete" in the 1415 survey of border fortresses, at that time held by Sir John Heron. The site is, however, absent from the 1541 survey, a sign that it was probably abandoned before the mid-16th century. A Scheduled Monument since 1967, Eshott is presented by Historic England as a rare and well-preserved example of a medieval fortified house in Northumberland, a type of which fewer than two hundred examples are recorded nationally. No building remains rise above ground: only the ditches, the causewayed entrance and faint internal earthworks bear witness to the former residence.