SIGSTON CASTLE

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A Moated 14th century quadrangular castle. The land on which the castle was built was acquired by John de Sigston in 1313 and a licence to crenellate was granted in 1336. The foundations of the curtain walls and central keep survive as upstanding earthworks. The moat is partially dry and partially marsh-filled. There are remains of extensive ridge and furrow in fields to the north of the castle. Scheduled.

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(SE 41659515) Sigston Castle (NR) (Site of)
Moat (NR) (1)

A trapezoidal platform of 2 1/4 acres with a well-preserved ditch. In the centre is a curious mound, 100ft square and 6ft high, which may perhaps have supported a wooden tower or keep. (2)

Licence of crenellation in 1336. (3)

The land on which the castle is built was acquired in 1313 by John de Sigston. The castle seems to have been built shortly after this. (4)

The moat, partially dry and partially marsh-filled, attains a maximum depth of over 4.0m on its NW side. The turf-covered central mound has been greatly robbed on its W side and at the centre, but is still a prominent feature. Published survey (25") revised. (5)

SE 4165 9515. Sigston Castle: an enclosure castle 400m N of Kirby Sigston Church. Scheduled RSM No 20533 (formerly NY/323).

The remains of Sigston Castle comprise the surrounding moat, surviving as an open ditch, and, in places, the foundations of the curtain walls and central keep, surviving as upstanding earthworks. The castle has a trapezoidal plan, the moated island measuring 140m N-S by 110m E-W. The moat is up to 15m wide and varies between 8m deep on the uphill, NW arm, to 1m deep on the SW arm which runs along the bottom of the slope at the edge of the floodplain. A 10m wide outer bank lies along the SW, NW and NE arms of the moat, surviving to a height of 1.5m on the NW arm.
The lack of an outer bank on the SE arm may be explained by the fact that this area would have been marsh in the medieval period.
The best-preserved part of the curtain wall lies on the inner edge of the NW arm, where it survives as a 1.5m high, 4m wide bank containing fragments of building stone. A further bank, 0.3m high and 4m wide, is also visible along the inner edges of the NE and SE arms, further foundations clearly exist elsewhere on the site. A modern causeway across the NW arm of the moat indicates the position of the original entrance to the castle; it is aligned with the centre of the NW side of the keep. This was a rectangular tower measuring 30m by 25m across at its base; its foundations survive as earth-covered banks. The space these banks enclose was
the undercroft of the keep, the W corner of which was removed, apparently to facilitate the removal of stonework during the
demolition and robbing of the tower. Other, less clearly defined, earthworks to the S of the keep mark the location of ancillary structures within the castle. Fields to the N of the castle contain extensive ridge and furrow earthworks. (6)

SOURCE TEXT

( 1) Ordnance Survey Map (Scale / Date)

OS 6" 1857

( 2) by Nikolaus Pevsner 1966 Yorkshire, the North Riding

The buildings of England 1966 Page(s)212

( 3) Scheduled Monument Notification

DOE (IAM) Draft List 1971

( 4) edited by William Page 1914 The Victoria history of the county of York, North Riding, volume one

The Victoria history of the counties of England 1914 Page(s)407

( 5) Field Investigators Comments

F1 DS 30-NOV-72

(6) Scheduled Monument Notification

English Heritage Scheduling Amendment 25/3/94

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