Upon landing at Pevensey in 1066 one of the first things that William of Normandy did was order the construction of a Castle. The structure was a pre-fabricated wooden construction, brought on the boats from Normandy. The Bayeaux tapestry shows his men working on this early Norman castle.

At the Battle of Hastings, William had killed King Harold and most of the English leaders.   Just because William had the crown, it did not mean that he was in control of England.  There were many who wanted to carry on fighting and William was forced to deal with 'dangerous areas' of the country by building wooden castles.

These wooden castles were called Motte & Bailey castles.  Motte is an old French word for 'clod of earth' and Bailey meant 'enclosure'.  They were very quick to build.  It took less than ten days to build some!

William reacted very harshly to any resistance.  This was shown in 1069-70 with the Harrying of the North.  William destroyed large areas of land, turning it into wasteland.  Many thousands of people died and William faced much less resistance after the early 1070s. 

Diagrams of  Motte and Bailey Castles

Motte and Bailey Castles: Key Points

• Easy to build. (They could be built in less than a week)
• Easy to defend. (And remember, the Normans were an invading army)
• Could easily be modified later (e.g. A stone tower rather than wooden tower)
• Over 70 were built during William's reign as King of England.