Great Canfield Castle

Great Canfield Castle stands in the quiet village of Great Canfield, five kilometres south-west of Great Dunmow in Essex. It occupies low ground near the River Roding, where the de Vere family built a motte and bailey castle in the late 11th or early 12th century. The keep was made of timber, and in the 1130s–1140s Aubrey de Vere II or his son Aubrey III, the first Earl of Oxford, may have redirected a river tributary to flood the ditch around the motte. Excavations show the moat reached a depth of six metres, eleven feet lower than the water table. The de Veres held the land under two feudal tenures when the Domesday Book was written in 1086. They were tenant-in-chief of the crown for two hides and tenant of Count Alan of Brittany for one hide. Over time the Richmond lordship was forgotten, and the Vere Earls of Oxford came to hold all three hides directly from the king. Manor rolls survive from 14 December 1346 into the 16th century. Today only the earthworks remain of the castle. The motte rises above the flat fields, and the flooded ditch still marks the bailey’s outline. Visitors walk the grassy banks and look across the water-filled moat to the central mound. The site is peaceful, with no modern buildings nearby, so the medieval layout can still be traced.