[3] This advantageous marriage made him a rich man and a member of the local elite, but he was an outsider in Devon society and his position was insecure.

[3] The castle provided a degree of protection for Asthorpe, but it was also intended for show, to impress others with his status and authority.

[4] The castle was a built in the quadrangular design fashionable at the time, to a roughly square shape with circular towers linked by stone walls.

The walls and towers were 4.5 feet (1.4 m) thick and built from chert stone rubble with occasional pieces of iron slag left over from the medieval metalworking around the village; they would originally have been whitewashed with lime.

[6] Despite being visually impressive, the castle was not particularly functional, as the gatehouse was poorly designed and the towers had no usable rooms on the upper stories.

[3] By the time that the antiquarian John Leland visited the castle in the early 16th century, it had fallen into ruin, and only a few towers remained intact.