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Rochester Castle stands on the east bank of the River Medway in Rochester, Kent, South East England. The 12th-century keep or stone tower, which is the castle's most prominent feature, is one of the best preserved of its time in England or France. Situated on the River Medway and Watling Street, Rochester was a strategically important royal ...
Totnes Castle is one of the best preserved examples of a Norman motte and bailey castle in England. [1] It is situated in the town of Totnes on the River Dart in Devon . The surviving stone keep and curtain wall date from around the 14th century.
A shell keep is a style of medieval fortification, best described as a stone structure circling the top of a motte. In English castle morphology, shell keeps are perceived as the successors to motte-and-bailey castles, with the wooden fence around the top of the motte replaced by a stone wall.
Some existing motte-and-bailey castles were converted to stone, with the keep and the gatehouse usually the first parts to be upgraded. [102] Shell keeps were built on many mottes, circular stone shells running around the top of the motte, sometimes protected by a further chemise, or low protective wall, around the base. By the 14th century, a ...
To accommodate the existing castle, a large ditch was cut through a natural spur westward into the Colne Valley in order to form a ringwork and inner bailey; an outer bailey extended south further into the valley and what is now the modern village of Castle Hedingham. The stone keep is the only mediaeval structure to survive, and is in an ...
Motte-and-bailey castles were adopted in Scotland, Ireland, the Low Countries and Denmark in the 12th and 13th centuries. By the end of the 13th century, the design was largely superseded by alternative forms of fortification, but the earthworks remain a prominent feature in many countries.
Baginton Castle, also known as Bagot's Castle, is a ruined castle in Baginton, Warwickshire, England. It was originally built in the 12th century by Geoffrey Savage and it was rebuilt as a stone keep during the late 14th century. [ 1 ]
A 19th-century reconstruction of the keep at Château d'Étampes. Since the 16th century, the English word keep has commonly referred to large towers in castles. [4] The word originates from around 1375 to 1376, coming from the Middle English term kype, meaning basket or cask, and was a term applied to the shell keep at Guînes, said to resemble a barrel. [5]