Berkhamsted Castle

Berkhamsted Castle is a fine example of a motte and bailey castle, surrounded by a double ditch and two moats. The motte is 15 metres high. On the top the footings of a circular keep can be seen. After William the Conqueror was crowned King of England William granted the Manor and Honour of Berkhamsted to his half-brother, Robert, Count of Mortain. Robert built the motte and bailey castle, a timber structure, at the bottom of a dry valley where there were springs to fill the moats.  

The oldest flint and stonework of the Castle date from the mid 12th century, when Thomas à Becket, who later became Archbishop of Canterbury, was Chancellor. The stone would have come from Totternhoe, near Dunstable. The curtain wall survives for almost the entire circuit of the bailey. The outer defences were damaged, 1837, by the building of the railway on the south side, and the road to the west in the 1930s. Access to the Castle is now from the southwest, but the main entrance was to the south, and would have been by a wooden drawbridge across the moat. On the north side are a number of earthen bastions which may have been extra defences built before the siege in 1216. Within the bailey are remains of a chapel and chamber.

The Castle was the favourite residence of many members of the royal family. Richard Earl of Cornwall made it the administrative centre for his entire Earldom. Edmund, his son, the founder of the monastic College of Bonhommes at Ashridge, was born here and the Black Prince, the first Duke of Cornwall, honeymooned here, according to tradition, after his marriage to the Fair Maid of Kent. The Castle still belongs to the Duchy of Cornwall.