Cockfield tower

Has been described as a Possible Timber Castle (Other/Unknown)

There are no visible remains

NameCockfield tower
Alternative NamesCuckfield; Kokefelda
Historic CountrySuffolk
Modern AuthoritySuffolk
1974 AuthoritySuffolk
Civil ParishCockfield

Building mentioned once about the time of Henry II, with an enormous wooden tower may well have been a castle. (King)

The manor of Cockfield Hall dates from 967 when it was held by Earl Alfan and his daughter Athelfled. They gave it to the Abbot of Bury in 1086 who granted it to the Prior of Bury in 1275. At the dissolution it was given to the Spring family, in 1545, by the Crown. (PastScape–ref. Churchill Babington)

magnum mesuagium, ubi aula Ade de Kokefelda primi quondam sita fuit, cum berefrido ligneo septies xx. pedum in altitudine

The great messuage, where the hall of Adam the first of Cockfield was once situated, together with a wooden belfry, seven score feet high (Butler 1949)

Gatehouse Comments

Old Cockfield Hall, which stood by the green is the most likely site, although there are also moats at TL913549 and TL917549. There were two medieval manors in Cockfield. Cockfield Hall and Earl's Hall. Earl's Hall was held by the De Vere Earls of Oxford, but seems unlikely as a residential manor for them. The Cockfield Hall, held by Bury Abbey, was tenanted by the the Cockfield family (Churchill Babington, 1880) of knightly status and was clearly a major residence for a family that held several other estates in East Anglia and Yorkshire. They may well have dressed their home up with martial symbols to reflect their status. The term berefrido is an unusually one for a description of a tower ( turris would be the normal term). It is a term used for a moveable siege tower but also for a belfry. Gatehouse suspects Butler is correct to translate this as 'belfry' and the question here is is this a documentary reference that suggests a post-Conquest continuation of the Saxon 'Bell House' (see Williams, A., 1992, 'A Bell-House and a Burh-Geat: Lordly Residences in England Before the Conquest' in C. Harper-Bill and R. Harvey (eds), Medieval Knighthood iv pp. 221-40 and Shapland, Michael, Forthcoming, 'Anglo-Saxon Lordly Towers and the Origins of the Castle in England', in Transformations and Continuities in the Eleventh Century: Archaeology of the Norman Conquest (Society for Medieval Archaeology))

- Philip Davis

Not scheduled

Not Listed

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s)
County Historic Environment Record
OS Map Grid ReferenceTL904543
Latitude52.1545295715332
Longitude0.780889987945557
Eastings590410
Northings254300
HyperLink HyperLink HyperLink

No photos available. If you can provide pictures please contact Castlefacts

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.

Calculate Print

Books

  • Salter, Mike, 2001, The Castles of East Anglia (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 88 (slight)
  • King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 460 (possible)
  • Copinger, W.A., 1905, Manors of Suffolk Vol. 1 p. 74- (tenurial history) online copy
  • Churchill Babington, 1880, Materials for a History of Cockfield (reprinted from the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology) online copy

Journals

  • Churchill Babington, 1880, 'Materials for a history of Cockfield' Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology Vol. 5.3 p. 238-9 online copy

Primary Sources

  • Butler, H.E. (ed), 1949, Cronica Jocelini de Brakelona de rebus gestis Samsonis, Abbatis Monasterii Sancti Edmundi (London) p. 139 online copy