Bourne Castle

Bourne Castle was a castle in the market town of Bourne in southern Lincolnshire (grid reference TF095199). A ringwork castle may have been established in Bourne soon after 1071 by Oger the Breton (largest landholder in Bourne in the 1086 Domesday account). The founding of a castle which may have been built on the old Saxon manor, or within the vicinity, may have came about from the rise and quashing of the Saxon rebellion led by the legendary Hereward ‘the Wake’. It is believed that the rebellion had been funded by the Saxon Earl Morcar. The manor of Bourne passed into the hands of Ralph, Son of Oger, thence onto William and Richard Du Rullos (c1114). At some point in its early life the castle transitioned into a motte and Bailey and built from timber. It is believed that the motte may have been added by Baldwin FitzGilbert (son of Gilbert Fitz Richard, of the De Clare family)(this Baldwin is not to be confused with the older Baldwin FitzGilbert aka Baldwin the Sheriff who built Oakhampton Castle). The castle passed into the Wac family (Wake) through the marriage of Hugh Wac and Emma FitzBaldwin (c1141) upon the death of Baldwin FitzGilbert in 1154. The castle transitioned from timber into a grander stone castle under the lordship of the Wake’s. The motte was reduced and a stone keep built. The keep had been surrounded by an semi-oval curtain wall which may have attached itself to the stone keep (donjon). The castle (which is probably best described as a ‘farming castle’) was at its grandest under the lordship of the Wake’s. An inventory of 1380 states there had been 413 houses, 2295 inhabitants, and about 200 serving in the castle of Bourne under the ladyship of Blanche Wake, wife of Thomas Wake. In 1356 a couple from Irnham, Luttrell and Despenser were married at the chapel within the castle grounds. The castle passed into the hands of the Holland family. Something drastic had happened in Bourne after 1380 because in 1443 it is recorded that over 140 messages…