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The Castle at Oliver's Mound
General History
Shrawley Castle, on Oliver’s Mount, was built around the year 1100. After the Norman Conquest and the Domesday Book, Shrawley was aquired by marriage by the Beauchamps of Elmley Castle, from the heiress of Urso de Abetot, Sheriff of Worcester. For about the next 300 years, lieutenants to the Beauchamps, the Le Poers, occupied the Castle. They were lords of the manor of Shrawley until the last of their line, Aline Le Poer, fell out with the Church and was excommunicated in the mid 1300s.
The manor passed back to the Beauchamps who dismantled the castle in favour of their other castle, Holt Castle 2 miles downstream. The Shrawley Castle then became a quarry site of quality building stone, used by locals, until the English Civil War when the Royalists used what was left as a gun emplacement.
Previous Excavations
In the years between 1928 & 1930 Mr & Mrs S.W. Masterman carried out excavations at Oliver’s Mound, (grid ref. SO 813 655), in Shrawley. The site is situated on a spur of Keuper sandstone, 60 feet above the riverbank of the River Severn. It is 1.6 miles up-stream from the Holt Lock. The Mastermans wrote two accounts of their excavations, one in the Worcestershire Archaeological Transactions, and the other in Worcestershire Naturalists’ Club Transactions. Click on the following link for an article written by S.W. Masterman for the Parish Magazine in November 1929 - Oliver's Mound
The River Crossing
The castle was strategically placed here by the Beauchamps to control the ancient ford over the River Severn, which had been in existence since the time of the Roman occupation.
With the decline of the official crossing of the River Severn, the crossing place at Redstone Ford near Stourport, away from Beauchamps tolls and inspections, was the place were the ‘common man’ crossed the river. The river in medieval times would have been much lower and wider than at present, before the building of the weir at Holt. The banks would also have been flatter, marshy and choked with reeds and mud.
The Castle
Masterman’s excavations show that although no stonework existed above ground, evidence of walls built of the local red sandstone, still existed. The lack of standing stone shows that much of it was carried away when the castle was abandoned, probably after the time of the English Civil War.
The excavations reveal that a tower measuring 27 feet square was probably the main hall, and a building outside the wall. They also uncovered the base of an octagonal tower with a small section of curtain walling. Conjecture is that the castle existed in a rectangular form with octagonal towers at each corner.
Archaeological finds, found by Masterman, at the excavation site included:
Written by Roderick Sproat
Shrawley Castle, on Oliver’s Mount, was built around the year 1100. After the Norman Conquest and the Domesday Book, Shrawley was aquired by marriage by the Beauchamps of Elmley Castle, from the heiress of Urso de Abetot, Sheriff of Worcester. For about the next 300 years, lieutenants to the Beauchamps, the Le Poers, occupied the Castle. They were lords of the manor of Shrawley until the last of their line, Aline Le Poer, fell out with the Church and was excommunicated in the mid 1300s.
The manor passed back to the Beauchamps who dismantled the castle in favour of their other castle, Holt Castle 2 miles downstream. The Shrawley Castle then became a quarry site of quality building stone, used by locals, until the English Civil War when the Royalists used what was left as a gun emplacement.
Previous Excavations
In the years between 1928 & 1930 Mr & Mrs S.W. Masterman carried out excavations at Oliver’s Mound, (grid ref. SO 813 655), in Shrawley. The site is situated on a spur of Keuper sandstone, 60 feet above the riverbank of the River Severn. It is 1.6 miles up-stream from the Holt Lock. The Mastermans wrote two accounts of their excavations, one in the Worcestershire Archaeological Transactions, and the other in Worcestershire Naturalists’ Club Transactions. Click on the following link for an article written by S.W. Masterman for the Parish Magazine in November 1929 - Oliver's Mound
The River Crossing
The castle was strategically placed here by the Beauchamps to control the ancient ford over the River Severn, which had been in existence since the time of the Roman occupation.
With the decline of the official crossing of the River Severn, the crossing place at Redstone Ford near Stourport, away from Beauchamps tolls and inspections, was the place were the ‘common man’ crossed the river. The river in medieval times would have been much lower and wider than at present, before the building of the weir at Holt. The banks would also have been flatter, marshy and choked with reeds and mud.
The Castle
Masterman’s excavations show that although no stonework existed above ground, evidence of walls built of the local red sandstone, still existed. The lack of standing stone shows that much of it was carried away when the castle was abandoned, probably after the time of the English Civil War.
The excavations reveal that a tower measuring 27 feet square was probably the main hall, and a building outside the wall. They also uncovered the base of an octagonal tower with a small section of curtain walling. Conjecture is that the castle existed in a rectangular form with octagonal towers at each corner.
Archaeological finds, found by Masterman, at the excavation site included:
- Spindle whorl of baked clay.
- Pottery sherds with green glaze, 14th century.
- Handle of a bone imolement found at tne oase or tne tower.
- Bronze coin, dated 14th century, used as a reckoning counter.
- Part or a sandstone capital, (9 ins. high), and a shaft ornamented with a pollard pattern, 13th Century. see fig. 2.
- Parts of the Norman Tower, occupied until the 14th century.
- Curtain wall of sandstone blocks, 9-10 feet in length, three courses deep, fronting along the river side of the castle.
- Evidence of robbed out walls. Ruins of castle removed and used as a source of wall stone around the village.
- A bed of ashes, on the floor of central tower, probably indicating its means of destruction.
- Bones of ox, deer, pig, and sheep, etc.
- Pieces of slag and a large headed iron nail found against the wall, indicating later iron working, and a piece of bronze casting found at the north end of the mound.
Written by Roderick Sproat
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