SDO10318 - Dorset: Castleton, Sherborne Old Castle; Medieval Archaeology

‘(ST 649167). P.R. White excavating for D.o.E. has shown that the buildings of Bishop Roger of Salisbury are not the earliest on the site. In addition to the undercroft of a small stone building beneath the area now occupied by the central courtyard of Roger’s complex, a rock-cut ditch with an outer earthen bank passes between the buildings to the W. (14th century) courtyard and then turns to run beneath the 12th century keep. Beneath the inner tail of the bank burials were made in rock-cut graves on an E. and W. axis. The bank and ditch may have enclosed the top of the original knoll before it was remodelled into a plateau for the 12th century bailey.’