Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

Ringwork known as Hanley Castle 520m south of the Church of St. Mary

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1005280
Date first listed:: 26-Jan-1970

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1005280
Date first listed:: 26-Jan-1970
Location Description:: Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Worcestershire
District:: Malvern Hills (District Authority)
Parish:: Hanley Castle
National Grid Reference:: SO 83808 41425

Reasons for Designation

Ringworks are medieval fortifications built and occupied from the late Anglo-Saxon period to the later 12th century. They comprised a small defended area containing buildings which was surrounded or partly surrounded by a substantial ditch and a bank surmounted by a timber palisade or, rarely, a stone wall. Occasionally a more lightly defended embanked enclosure, the bailey, adjoined the ringwork. Ringworks acted as strongholds for military operations and in some cases as defended aristocratic or manorial settlements. They are rare nationally with only 200 recorded examples and less than 60 with baileys. As such, and as one of a limited number and very restricted range of Anglo-Saxon and Norman fortifications, ringworks are of particular significance to our understanding of the period. Despite some disruption by later use and partial excavation, the ringwork known as Hanley Castle survives comparatively well. Hanley Castle has good historical documentation and the documented phase of royal remodelling in particular greatly enhances the importance of the site. The monument will contain important archaeological information relating to the use, construction and occupation of the ringwork.

Details

The monument includes the remains of a ringwork, a keep and a house situated at the confluence of Pool Brook and Mere Brook. The ringwork, known as Hanley Castle, survives as three sides of a large banked enclosure with a moated quarry ditch, a keep and the remains of a house. The bank and moat encloses a sub rectangular area approximately 155m by 100m. The bank is up to 6m high on the western side and between 1.5m and 3m on the south and eastern sides. The bank has been has been used to infil the moat ditch on the northern side. Excavation during the early 1980's found the ditch to be clay lined and up to 18m wide and between 2.7m and 3.6m deep. The keep survives as a circular concave depression about 5m in diameter situated in the north western corner of the enclosure. Foundation walls approximately 2.7m thick were excavated in its vicinity. The buried remains of Hanley Castle House are located at the north of the site. Hanley Castle was built by King John between 1206 and 1212. Between 1322 and 1327 Edward II carried out extensive work on the castle. Tradition states that in 1324 Edward II put over one thousand diggers to work constructing the bank and ditch. A chapel was recorded here in 1327 and in 1349 the castle was extended. During the 17th century a large square structure including four towers surrounded by a moat with a keep in the north western corner was recorded here.

Sources: NMR:- SO 84 SW 3 Pastscape Monument No:- 116014 Hancox, E. & Russell, O. 2009., Recent Changes to Scheduled Monuments in Worcestershire. Worcestershire Historic Environment and Archaeology Service.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: WT 281
Legacy System:: RSM - OCN

Legal

This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.