Eye Castle

Eye Castle stands on a grassy mound in the Suffolk town of Eye. A motte-and-bailey fortress was raised soon after the Norman Conquest and enlarged with a stone enclosure. The inner bank is forty metres wide and twelve metres high, while the outer courtyard stretches one hundred and twenty by seventy-five metres. A market once operated inside the bailey, recorded in the Domesday survey of 1086. The castle passed from the Malet family to King Henry I, then to Stephen of Blois and later to his son William. After William’s death in 1159 the crown took direct control and rebuilt parts of the defences. The castle played a small part in the civil wars of the 12th century. Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, attacked Eye in 1173 but failed to capture it. Two square towers were added late in that century, possibly at the same time as Framlingham Castle. In 1265 the fortress was sacked during the Second Barons’ War and afterwards fell into ruin. By the 14th century only the prison and a few walls remained standing. A windmill was built on the motte in the 1560s, and in the 1830s a workhouse and school occupied the bailey. Today the grassy motte and scattered stone fragments show where the medieval castle once stood. A flint house built in 1844 for Sir Edward Kerrison’s batman now lies roofless on the summit. The site is protected as a scheduled monument and Grade I listed building. Visitors walk the mound and view the surrounding Suffolk countryside. The Constable of the Castle title still belongs to the Palmer family of Haughley.