Oxford Castle

The medieval remains of the castle including the motte, St George's Tower and crypt, are Grade I listed buildings and a Scheduled Monument.

According to the Historia Ecclesie Abbendonensis (Abingdon Chronicle),[1] Oxford Castle was built by the Norman baron Robert D'Oyly the elder from 1071 to 1073.

[2] Oxford had been stormed in the invasion with considerable damage, and William directed D'Oyly to build a castle to dominate the town.

[14] The new curtain wall incorporated St George's Tower, which is built of coral rag stone, 30 by 30 feet (9 m × 9 m) at the base and tapering significantly toward the top for stability.

[24] In 1074 D'Oyly and his close friend, Roger d'Ivry had endowed a chapel with a college of priests, which is presumed to be the structure in question; at an early stage it acquired a dedication to Saint George.

The ten-sided stone shell keep, 58 feet (18 m), constructed in the 13th century to replace an earlier wooden structure, closely resembled those of Tonbridge and Arundel Castles.

[28] Stephen responded by marching from Bristol in the Autumn of 1142, attacking and seizing the town of Oxford and besieging Matilda in the castle.

[25] Stephen would have had difficulty in supplying his men through the winter period, and this decision shows the apparent strength of Oxford Castle at the time.

[29] Finally in December, Matilda responded by escaping from the castle; the popular version of this has the Empress waiting until the Castle Mill Stream was frozen over and then dressed in white as camouflage in the snow, being lowered down the walls with three or four knights, before escaping through Stephen's lines in the night as the king's sentries tried to raise the alarm.

[25] Robert had died in the final weeks of the siege and the castle was granted to William de Chesney for the remainder of the war.

[40] Ralph Agas's map of Oxford in 1578 shows that by then, while the curtain wall, keep and towers remained, the barbican had been demolished to make way for houses.

Hassall, 1976, states that by 1600 the moat was almost entirely silted up and houses had been built all around the edge of the bailey wall,[41] although this is contradicted by the castle's appearance in John Speed's map of Oxford, 1605.

[46] In the event, Oxford saw no fresh fighting; early in the 18th century, however, the keep was demolished and the top of the motte landscaped into its current form.

[50] A view of the castle published in 1769 in the work "England Displayed" by P. Russell and Owen Price is of interest in that it shows the appearance of the chapel attached to St George's tower prior to its demolition in 1794, as well as the motte and some then-surviving portions of the curtain wall including an arch or gateway in the wall immediately to the north of the tower.

[60] Harris gained a reasonable salary as the new governor and used convict labour from the prison to conduct early archaeological excavations at the castle with the help of the antiquarian Edward King.

[61] In the 19th century the site continued to be developed, with various new buildings built including the new County Hall in 1840–41 and the Oxfordshire Militia Armoury in 1854.

[33] The inmates included children, the youngest being a seven-year-old girl sentenced to seven days hard labour in 1870 for stealing a pram.

[64] The full extent of the original castle is somewhat obliterated today, especially with the intrusion of the newer County Hall into the eastern side, while New Road runs over the location of north-east portion of the curtain wall with its two square towers; nevertheless the position of its outer perimeter moat is approximated by portions of New Road, Castle Street and Paradise Street (refer map at right), while the remains of the original Barbican lie underneath the modern Westgate shopping centre.

[66] As at 2018, guided tours of the surviving medieval and 18th-century portions are available to visitors via a commercial operator, Heritage Projects (Oxford Castle) Ltd, with opening hours and pricing available via their website.

St George's Tower and D wing, Oxford Castle, England
Oxford Castle, around 1250. A: The keep and motte; B: St George's Tower and Chapel; C: The Round Tower; D: River Isis; E: Moat; F: City wall; G: West Gate; H: Barbican [ 11 ]
Empress Matilda escaped from a siege of Oxford Castle in 1141 during The Anarchy .
Oxford Castle in the 16th century. Engraving after detail on the earliest map of Oxford by Ralph Agas , 1578 published in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction , Vol. 12, No. 328, August 23, 1828
John Speed 's map of Oxford, 1605, showing the castle (labelled "P") at upper right. (North is at the bottom of this map)
Remains of the remodelled Oxford Castle in the early 1670s: detail from David Loggan 's Oxonia Illustrata map/bird's eye view, published in 1675 (BL 128.h.10), with north at the bottom. The Castle Mill is visible adjacent in the stream adjacent to the prominent St. George's Tower, and a portion of the round base of the southernmost tower also remains.
How an artist in 1845 imagined Oxford Castle looked in the 15th century; a possibly more realistic reconstruction of the appearance of the castle in Norman times is available here. [ 18 ]
St George's Tower in 1832, viewed from across the Castle Mill Stream; the water mill (Castle Mill) is visible, immediately to the right of the tower, built across the stream.
Oxford Castle approximate extent, versus present-day features: castle outline from Booth et al., 2003; basemap from OpenStreetMap, June 2018. St. George's Tower is at the western limit of the castle boundary, with the adjoining Castle Mill; at the southern limit is the outline of the single original round tower whose base still remains under one of the cell blocks of the former prison.
Aerial view of the castle in 2006, showing the castle motte centre left, the square St George's Tower front left and the round Debtors' Tower (constructed in the 18th century, not part of the original building). Behind is Nuffield College with its square tower with a copper-covered flèche .
Oxford Castle motte in 2009
The weir by St. George's Tower in 2009, site of the original Castle Mill
Round Tower and C Wing of Oxford Prison in Oxford Castle. Buildings and batter by William Blackburn 1785–90, on foundations of 1235 round tower
The 13th-century well inside the 11th-century motte
St George's crypt chapel, rebuilt in 1794 re-using its late 11th-century Norman columns and capitals
13th-century Early English hexagonal vault of the well-chamber inside the motte
HMP Oxford has been converted into a Malmaison Hotel .