What is recorded here

Pickering Castle is a substantial motte and bailey fortification established in the late eleventh century in North Yorkshire, commanding strategic position on the northern edge of the Vale of Pickering. A prominent earthen mound surrounded by a substantial ditch supports a circular stone shell keep built in the early thirteenth century, roughly thirty metres in diameter and still standing to considerable height. The keep marks the transition from timber palisade to permanent masonry fortification, while later stone ranges and gateways filled the bailey before the castle was abandoned in favour of residential accommodation by the sixteenth century.

The National Heritage List for England records Pickering Castle: 11th century motte and bailey castle and 13th century shell keep castle as a scheduled monument. The saved point comes from the centre supplied by the official record. Listing does not by itself mean that the public may enter the place.

Built initially as an 11th-century motte and bailey castle by the de Romilly family and later replaced by a 13th-century shell keep under the de Vesci family, Pickering Castle is important as a key stronghold in the defense of the northern English border during the medieval period.

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