Stansted Mountfitchet Castle

Stansted Mountfitchet Castle stands on a gentle rise above the village of Stansted Mountfitchet in Essex. It is a Norman ringwork and bailey fortification built after the Conquest by the Montfitchet family. The inner ring covers about half an acre and the outer bailey about one acre, both raised on earthworks that still show the original slopes. Archaeologists believe the hill was first an Iron Age fort, then used by Romans, Saxons and Vikings. Fragments of pottery and tools from these periods have been found in the soil. The castle’s most famous owner was Robert Gernon, who came with William the Conqueror and made it his chief seat. His family held the lordship for only five generations before the male line ended. In the 1980s the earthworks were cleared and the wooden keep and buildings were rebuilt exactly as they would have stood in the 11th century. This makes it the only full-scale wooden motte-and-bailey reconstruction on its original site anywhere in the world. Visitors walk along the grassy ramparts and into the timber palisade that surrounds the keep. Inside the bailey are timber-framed houses, a forge and a granary arranged as they would have been in the Middle Ages. Hens scratch the ground near the gatehouse and a Light Brahma cockerel named Little John once stood taller than any other recorded chicken. The view from the top of the mound looks out over the village and the open Essex countryside.