Berkhamsted Castle - A Little History

The exact origin of Berkhamsted Castle is unclear. It was probably built by Robert, Count of Mortain and Earl of Cornwall, who was the half-brother of King William I. Robert became wealthy from the Norman Conquest in 1066 and grew even more rich during the following years.

However, his son made a big mistake by backing Robert of Normandy against King Henry I. Henry impounded the castle and its grounds and put it up for rent. A number of wealthy families rented it from time to time, one of whom was Thomas Becket.

Berkhamsted Castle is of the classic style for its age in that it is a motte and bailey castle. The motte is a tall conical mound of earth on which would stand the last line of defence, the keep. Two ditches surround the bailey with a rampart in between. The ditches may or may not have been full of water.

The motte and bailey and its keep were the ancient equivalent of a modern strong or safe room. If the outer concentric walls of the castle were breached, the family occupying the castle and their most trusted soldiers would flee into the keep and lift up the drawbridge. Any would-be attackers now had to approach across open ground, in effect a killing field.

Then the invaders would have to cross a ditch or a moat under heavy fire, climb over a rampart and swim another moat. If they got that far they would face a sheer keep wall with no windows doors or toe-holds while a withering shower of rocks and arrows poured down upon them from a great height.

The keep at Berkhamsted Castle has been removed quite some time ago. It has to be kept in mind that castles were symbols of foreign oppression and were fiercely hated by the indigenous locals. The first castles or forts really were Roman; then came, Saxon forts and castles and finally Norman castles - all owned by marauding foreigners.

So once a castle was destroyed or badly damaged, it was not unusual for the locals to pillage the ruins in order to build a new cottage for their family or a new cowshed for their livestock. It was easier to steal the rocks from the rundown castle than quarry them themselves. So, the original rocks that made up Berkhamsted Castle are almost certainly to be discovered under centuries of plaster in the near-by local farmhouses.

Having said that, there are still parts of the original flint wall from the era of Thomas Becket's occupancy of the castle. The pieces of stone were probably too small to be worth pinching.

The remnants of three semi-circular towers flank this wall which ran from the motte to the bailey. They too lie in ruins although the foundations show what they were. There are also the ruins of a barbican at the north end of the bailey.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of castles in the United Kingdom. Most of them are in ruins but some are very well preserved and some are even still lived in, like Windsor Castle for example.