Excavations at Clavering Castle

Sum awarded: £10,000

Clavering Castle in Essex is one of the earliest castles in England, in fact it is one of a handful of castles to have been established before the Norman Conquest. The site was occupied for some five centuries and was a local centre of power. The castle today survives as a roughly rectangular bank and ditch, with the internal buildings long since decayed.

The grant from the Castle Studies Trust will allow the Clavering Landscape History Group to begin excavations at the castle, with archaeologist Simon Coxall leading the fieldwork. This buildings on the work of the Clavering Environs Project which carried out geophysical surveys at the castle in 2020 and 2021. The excavation aims to establish the location of the gatehouse and routes through the castle and identify the structures that once stood within the castle.