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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 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]
Other major alterations were made by Bishop Thomas Hatfield in the 1300s, including a rebuilding of the keep and enlargement of the keep mount. [8] The castle has a large Great Hall, originally called a Dining Hall, created by Bishop Antony Bek in the early 14th century; Bishop Hatfield added a wooden minstrels' gallery. The hall was modified ...
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 ...
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.
It was developed into a stone motte and bailey castle which had a stone shell keep. The current inner ward was originally the bailey, and was built between 1180 and 1187. [ 2 ] The keep was developed into a stone shell keep sometime during the years 1216 to 1236 along with the chapel – there is a reconstruction of the chapel at the site.
In the early part of the reign of King Stephen a new castle was built two miles to the south east of the site of the old castle by the Aubigny family. Today we can still see the remaining foundations of a circular stone keep - this is approximately 60 feet in diameter. The castle was besieged during the Barons' War in 1263.