The Archaeology of Oakham Castle with Mathew Morris

This digital lecture was recorded live for the Leicestershire Fieldworkers on 18 June 2020. Oakham Castle is one of Rutland’s best kept secrets. Its great hall is one of the finest surviving examples of domestic Norman architecture in Europe but despite several important excavations since the 1950s, very little is known about the rest of the castle. Mathew Morris from University of Leicester Archaeological Services (ULAS) discusses the castle’s history and archaeology, particularly focusing on exciting new discoveries made during its recent Heritage Lottery funded restoration which is finally starting to unlock the secrets of the castle’s construction, layout and role.

[joshubrook]

Thank you I have been to visit Oakham today and was delighted to find my favourite local archeologist has been there first and produced this fascinating talk thank you Matthew

[Nk-pvpp]

Thank you. I have learnt a lot from your talk before my impending visit

[benderrodriguez]

Appreciate the doc. and not cutting out the mistakes. It somehow, for me, made it better.

[SIG]

19:15 Looking at this reconstruction drawing, I have questions and remarks.
First of all, bottom left image seems to suggest a single floor. This is likely safe to rule out as there seems to be a blocked door on the far end, which (as drawn in) seems to be above the pantry. This would suggest either a second floor or it's a open area to look towards the north side. Another option would be a corridor towards the kitchen block which would indicate a interesting connection between both buildings. However it might be, that bottom left reconstruction image would be rather obsolete based on that one single door.

Second, the door that seems to be leading into a open area (between the pantry and buttery and vertically in front of the kitchen), this looks really weird if that were indeed a open space without walls. It would have likely been closed off in the past as it would make a lot more logical sense.

Third, that closed off window suggests the building that once held the pantry, kitchen, buttery area may have been removed and that window being added instead (only to get blocked later again). OR alternatively the other way around, the window gets blocked off to get a new building added to the main structure.

Now over all, it could have been just a flat roof surface instead. This so the owner of the castle or the church could address the people. The only odd thing would be the kitchen area which would make this a very big flat surface over all. There are however 2 other theories that may be worth to investigate.

Theory 1: Most unlikely, but the kitchen could have had some form of grain mill on top of it. Which would have had a possible entrance on top from the great hall's second floor door that is now blocked off. I call this unlikely as you will need wind to have that mill operate. While it's fairly open towards the North, East and South, the west is more the issue as the wind gets blocked by the great hall itself unless they made this mill very tall so it could tower above it. This would be very unlikely as it would be weak in structure and even a slight wind will be able to endanger the mill's structure and collapse. Another big issue would be that it would be a huge target for potential enemies.

Theory 2: More likely, a tower would possibly be on top of the kitchen area to some extend. This would further secure the inside of the castle as you can shoot a bit further with arrows which would protect most of the inside area. Now for a tower of that type to be on a kitchen would be rather unique and foolish, you don't need to enter the tower to kill all opponents as you can just knock down weak sections on ground level such as door ways, windows etc. I do think it would be a wise choice to check how thick those walls were and how much weight they potentially could carry. This in how many floors or how tall a possible structure could be without the well known buttresses to support it. I don't see those drawn in, so I'm assuming based on that that there are none. Even a 2 or 3 level building would help a lot in castle defense. Even if the second floor would be only staircases or ladder space to get on top. Seeing how thick the walls are, you can determine also whether it would have been an option in the past to have the kitchen occupy that space later. Also in that case it might be possible for the second floor blocked door to be the entrance of the tower itself. This would make it a lot more secure then having a door on floor level.

[dloglesby]

I know this site from when Time Team was there back in 2013. BTW Time team is back🙂I can proudly state that I am just ONE of the Many supporters of it coming back. They did a Large dig in 2021, that will be shown later this year, and have several digs planned for 2022..

[SIG]

1:00:08 Look at the tower east of the gatehouse, or rather directly east of it. This looks like it could be a round tower that is even bigger then the known square tower itself.
To the North east of the wall is some kind of rectangle shaped flat surface. This could be an additional tower of some kind. Or perhaps a potential waterwheel house, which would suggest there would be some form of water current going on that allowed a structure like that to be build there.

Just north of the workshop there seems to be a small square surface detached from the wall itself. There is a possibility this could be a potential tower or other structure. To the west side of the workshop, the large open ground, seems to have a huge rectangular shaped flat surface which looks like it has a inner courtyard perhaps. (similar to the O-shaped buildings I'm guessing) I have a feeling this area is a decent spot to look at in more dept. Perhaps I'm wrong entirely, but the LIDAR image seems to show something in that direction at least.
However with you stating there were limited investigations in that area and not much being found, it could be some form of garden feature instead indeed.

Right trough the center seems to be a embankment of some sort that may indicate a raised dirt mount that leads from south to the north wall. Another one but smaller seems to run around the great hall itself. These being angled I'm thinking it may involve a later wall 1500-1600 that may have been used as garden feature or something in that direction. But looking at the south side, where this embankment seems to start, it seems to suggest it might be part of the defenses itself.

[mariahunter]

This was so interesting and enjoyable. Thank you so much.

[jacquelinevanderkooij]

So nice to see this after Time Team.
Though the name of the castle suggests a before Norman, so as call it Anglo-saxon time.

[MOColumbia]

Considering the horseshoe collection, could Cutts Close with its appearance of an enclosure, been a Horse enclosure? Were the occupants known for Horse Breeding? Just a thought.

[cowboyaa]

Around 41:09 you talk about the rubble from the wall that was possible from the demolition of the walls but to me that does not look like a demolition of the wall, there does not seam to be rocks that are scattered. What I mean is that the stones are laid in a uniform pattern, you would think that if the wall was pushed over that the stones would be haphazard in the way they would end up on the ground. When they demolished the building I don't believe that they would lay the stones down in a uniform flat pattern on the ground. To me that looks like an older wall and the wall that crosses it is a newer wall built onto that older stone wall.

[owainwilliams]

You need some metal detecting professionals in there historical finds would be more in depth and more information on the site less digging needed damaging stratified finds