Castles in South Yorkshire

While there are many castles in South Yorkshire, the majority are manor houses and motte-and-bailey which were commonly found in England after the Norman Conquest.

Bailey Hill is a 60-foot-high (18 m) motte, and an eighteenth-century excavation found stonework, suggesting that its castle may have been rebuilt in stone.

Its bailey covered three-quarters of an acre, and its surrounding ditch and rampart still stand up to 30 feet (9.1 m) high.

Nearby Castle Hill has been variously identified as a ringwork, a natural look-out point,[2] or a siege work.

The building is considered one of South Yorkshire's primary tourist attractions, and sees in excess of 35,000 visitors per year.

[4] Doncaster Castle lay on the site of the town's Roman fort, beside the River Don.

The motte was surrounded by a 16-foot (4.9 m) deep ditch, 30 feet (9.1 m) wide, which later marked the bounds of St George's churchyard.

[2] Although reduced in size, the motte stands 52 feet (16 m) high, and is surrounded by a six-foot bank and a 50 ft (15 m) wide ditch.

The first Sheffield Castle was a wooden motte and bailey type, built for William de Lovetot in the early twelfth century.

The motte survives in the grounds of Skellow Hall, and part of the earthworks of the bailey can be seen in a field to the north.

The tower, built of masonry, survived at least until the fifteenth century, when John Leland wrote that "by the church garth of Thorne is a praty pile or castelet, well diked, now used for a prison for offenders in the forestes".

Cusworth Park in Sprotborough has a "Castle Hill", sometimes identified as a motte, but this may be a landscape gardening feature.

The fortified manor house was defended by fifty men-at arms during the English Civil War.

Rossington similarly has the Draw Dykes Moat, which was probably the site of a manor house, although there could conceivably have been a castle there.

Hooton Pagnell Hall is a Tudor building, likely built on the site of a manor house.