Ascot d'Oilly Castle

Ascot d’Oilly Castle stands north of Ascott-under-Wychwood in north-west Oxfordshire. The earthworks form a scheduled ancient monument on a low rise above the Evenlode valley. Roger d’Oilly received the land from William the Conqueror and his brother founded Oxford Castle. Archaeologists believe the stone keep was built in the early 1100s and demolished about 1180. Today a grassy mound thirty-two metres wide and three metres high marks the motte. A Grade II listed ruin of the keep crowns the summit within a twenty-metre circle. The remains were first dug in 1946–47 by Martyn Jope and R. I. Threlfall, then again in 1959. Their work uncovered shelly ware pottery from the 12th century. They showed the mound was not natural but built up around a ground-level tower for defence. Walls two metres thick once enclosed an eleven-square-metre chamber. Similar earth-and-stone castles appear at Lydford, Caldicot and Skenfrith. Only traces of the tower survive, weathered to stubs. The site lies fifty-five metres from Ascott Earl Castle at the village’s far end. Despite their closeness the two forts were never fought over. Leafield Castle, 2.7 miles away, may have shared in the defence of west Oxfordshire. Visitors walk the grassy mound and look across the ditches that once held wooden palisades. The quiet fields around still echo with the castle’s vanished strength.