ABSTRACT
One is apt to think of a Norman castle as a ponderous square tower of stone, like the Tower of London, or the great Norman keeps at Rochester, or Newcastle-upon-Tyne, or Castle Hedingham in Essex, or Norham on the Tweed. The ordinary Norman baron, who had not money enough to build himself a great stone tower, used different materials for his castle. Instead of making it of stone and lime, he made it of earthwork and timber. The wooden superstructures have long since perished, but the earthworks endure, and some of them are very imposing. Good examples are found at the castles of Tonbridge in Kent, Tickhill in Northamptonshire, Lewes and Arundel in Sussex, Shrewsbury in Shropshire, and in many other places. In parts of Scotland where the Normans settled we meet with these characteristic earthworks, like the Mote of Urr, in Galloway, the Doune of Invernochty in Aberdeenshire, or the Castle of Duffus in Moray.
