Archaeologists at Eynsford Castle

Antiquarians became interested in Eynsford Castle in 1835, when the architect Edward Cresy was employed to clear the site of modern buildings. Cresy made a survey of the castle ruins and attempted to reconstruct the castle buildings.

An archaeologist examining the area of the collapsed curtain wall in the 1960s © English Heritage. In 1872 part of the curtain wall collapsed, exposing the man-made mound inside. A concrete wall has since been erected to retain the earth mound. There are white markings on the wall, which represent the archaeological layers of the mound.

The castle was first studied in detail when it was excavated by Stuart Rigold in the 1950s and 60s. Further excavations were carried out by Valerie Horsman in the 1980s. These excavations revealed that the castle was built on the site of an earlier building with stone foundations. This early building was possibly the hall of a Saxon lord and was probably part of a larger settlement, about which little is known.