Castle Gresley

The site survives as a group of earthworks forming a motte-and-bailey layout with a central mound and three surrounding baileys. The motte-and-bailey form was built in earth and timber, and the surviving landforms show the footprint and relationships of the original defensive and domestic areas rather than standing stone structures.

The motte remains as a conical artificial hill about four metres high. Its base is roughly fifty metres across and the top measures about twelve metres in diameter. On the summit there is a raised platform approximately five metres across that is believed to have carried a now-lost tower. Around the motte runs a ditch about ten metres wide and presently around two metres deep; the northern portion of that ditch has been partly filled with soil displaced during nearby housing work.

To the east the motte is connected to a distinct three-metre-high mound where a tower once stood, a position described as having guarded what was likely the main approach. The motte and that mound sit within the central bailey, which opens out to about seventy metres at its widest point. The northern bailey lies beyond a roughly two-metre-deep ditch and stretches about forty metres along its longest axis, while the southern bailey is separated from the central enclosure by a five-metre-wide berm.

Descriptions of the defences indicate the baileys were formed with a scarp topped by a timber palisade, consistent with earth-and-wood construction techniques. Within the baileys the ground contains traces interpreted as the sites of a main hall, living accommodation, kitchens, workshops, stables and paddocks; a modern shed and stable occupy part of the north bailey today. The whole complex commands views northward over the River Trent and southward toward the River Mease. Overall the site is substantial in extent and is regarded as generally well preserved, with many buried archaeological remains thought to survive. The central bailey also contains the underground monitoring post installed by the Royal Observer Corps after the Second World War, a later alteration made while the site remained in use for monitoring purposes.