What is recorded here

Brees castle overlooks a forgotten grid of fields where ruined drystone walls still mark the edges of rectangular plots. The grass hides cultivation ridges aligned northeast to southwest, proving that people once farmed this undulating land before pasture took over. The castle stands on a prominent knoll at the southeast edge, watching the ghost of a working farmstead that vanished into green silence.

In pasture in undulating terrain, adjacent to Brees castle, an Anglo-Norman masonry castle (MA091-10----). Fragmentary remains of a grid of rectilinear fields extend over an area of c. 200m N−S by c. 170m E−W. The intact outline of at least four individual fields (max dim. 45-50m) can still be traced. The fields are defined by drystone walls, now ruined and grassed over, and enclose relict cultivation ridges on a roughly NE−SW axis. Brees castle occupies a prominent knoll towards the SE extent to the field system. While it is possible that some of the field walls may be contemporary with the castle, it seems more likely that the field system relates to an 18th/19th-century farmstead, which was located c. 30m N of the castle and is shown on the 1838 and 1920 OS 6-inch maps. Compiled by: Jane O’Shaughnessy Date of upload: 7 February 2022

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