What is recorded here

Tonbridge Castle began as a wooden motte-and-bailey guard post for the River Medway crossing, but King William II burned it and the town in 1088 after the de Clare rebellion. The family returned to build a stone shell keep, later reinforced by a twin-towered gatehouse finished in 1260. That gatehouse still stands beside a seven-acre park where the great seal of England once waited for Edward I, turning a punished border post into a living monument of patience and stone.

The National Heritage List for England records Tonbridge 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.

Tonbridge Castle was built by William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey, in the late 11th or early 12th century. It is important as a well-preserved example of a Norman motte-and-bailey castle and for its historical role in the region's medieval military and administrative structure.

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