Deddington Castle

The site of Deddington Castle lies to the east of the town and comprises some 8 acres. At the present time it is a grassed-in enclosure surrounded by banks and trees on three sides, and is used as a recreational area for walking dogs and so on. There have been two recent archaeological "digs", one in 1947 and one in 1977. These have uncovered evidence of some Saxon building on the site, but the main evidence, both archaeological and documentary, is of the castle in the eleventh to fourteenth centuries. There was an inner bailey containing a stone hall, a solar and chapel, with a tower on the east side and a gatehouse on the west side giving access to the large outer bailey. Pottery from the 11th to 13th centuries was found on the site.

Norman Arch
The distinctive profile of a Norman arch, now in a local house and said to have come from the castle.
Castle Dig 1977
The pristine base of the castle exposed during the dig by Queen's University, Belfast 1977. It was subsequently recovered.
The Castle was built by or for Bishop Odo of Bayeux, half brother of William the Conqueror, as the headquarters of his extensive estates in Oxfordshire, and appears to have been a place of considerable strength in the twelfth century. William de Chesney, Lord of Deddington, held the Castle in the mid twelfth century when England was ravaged by civil war, but during the struggle between King Richard and his brother Prince John in the late twelfth century it was seized by the Crown. Descendants of the Chesneys, the Dive family, regained possession in the thirteenth century and styled themselves 'Lord of Deddington Castle', but by the end of that century it was partially demolished and by 1310 there seems to have been little left apart from "a chamber and a dovecote". By 1377 stonework from the walls was being sold off. To the south east of the Castle site is a field known as 'The Fishers' which was presumably originally the fishpond for the castle.

The site has been excavated twice: between 1947-1953 and again in 1977. The latter was carried out by Queens University Belfast (see pic above) and a very full account of the history of the castle, written by  Richard Ivens, was subsequently published as an article in Oxoniensia 49 (1984), pp. 101–19. It is reproduced here (download in pdf format) with grateful thanks to the Editor and Committee of the Oxford Architectural and Historical Society.  

For additional information on the Castle from The Young Archaeologists' Club, please see www.kickback.btinternet.co.uk/YAC/Deddington.html. Also aerial photograph courtesy of Multimap.