ABSTRACT
As the town's most prominent and dramatic archaeological survival, Wallingford castle is ample testimony to a major physical reconfiguration of the urban landscape following the Norman Conquest. The earthwork bank and associated ditch in the south of the trench almost certainly represent a garden landscaping feature as it sits on top of all the other surviving archaeological structures and features. The survival of both the site layout and the integrity of its immediate landscape setting are exceptional for a major medieval urban castle. While as a prominent possession of the Crown, Wallingford castle was pivotal to the projection of royal power in the middle Thames valley, its direct involvement in medieval military affairs was limited to the 'Anarchy' of the mid-12th century. The Norman fortress was superimposed within the enormous ramparted defences of the Anglo-Saxon burh, which both provided the builders with a pre-positioned defensive site and formed a morphological frame for the castle's subsequent development.
