ABSTRACT
The castles which we now see as substantial earthworks must be approached in a different way from those which have left the remains of stone walls. This is not so much because the castles themselves were essentially different for being built in a different way, but because our knowledge of them is. Indeed, the very distinction between earthworks and stone may be shown to be wrong if excavation discovers the buried walls within what appeared as mounds of earth. To us they are earthworks, because that is how we see and recognise them now, but it is better to think of them as timber castles. Even if the builders used no stone, they were to the contemporary visitor’s eye often predominately timber castles, either because much of the earthwork was revetted or concealed by timber, or because the buildings were of timber (Higham and Barker, 1992). Unless the earthwork sites have been excavated, we have little idea of much of their structure or development. Similarly, there are few, or no, documents that relate to many of the earthwork castles, unlike the stone castles, where normally we know the ownership and sometimes have dates of construction and use.
