Knightlow

Has been described as a Questionable Timber Castle (Motte)

There are uncertain remains

NameKnightlow
Alternative Names
Historic CountryWarwickshire
Modern AuthorityWarwickshire
1974 AuthorityWarwickshire
Civil Parish

The possible motte at Kenilworth, 'Knightlow on the bank of the Avon' (W., The Builder, xlvii (1884) 79-80) cannot be located; it may well be Stoneleigh. If, however, the author 'W' is Whitley, this can hardly be correct. Knightlow in the ordinary usage is the name of a hillock at SP/sq. 4073. See also Dugdale, War., i, 4. It is not near either Kenilworth or the banks of the Avon. (King 1983)

Gatehouse Comments

May be Motslow Hill, Stoneleigh. Knightlow is the name of the hundred of Warwickshire for this general area and Motslow Hill may well have been the Mote for the Knightlow Hundred. Camden writes "Stoneley, where King Henrie the Second founded an Abbay, and just over against it stood in old time a Castle upon Avon called Stoneley-holme, built in Holmeshul, which was destroied when the flaming broiles of Danish warres under King Canutus caught hold of all England." Again this could be Motslow Hill, Stoneleigh but Gatehouse can not associate with a Holme place-name. Motslow Hill was called a Mote by Dugdale, although clearly in terms of a legal meeting place. Did the writer W. in The Builder, referenced by King, understand the difference between a moot and, the then relatively new term (to English antiquarians), a motte. The Whitley mentioned by King had described Motslow the year before in The Builder Vol. 45 p. 579-80 and it seems quite unlikely 'W.' is the same. Without seeing the piece in The Builder it is not possible to be fully certain but it seems likely this is a reference to Motslow Hill, which is on the bank of the River Avon, near Kenilworth and in Knightlow Hundred.

- Philip Davis

Not scheduled

Not Listed

County Historic Environment Record
OS Map Grid Reference
Latitude0
Longitude0
Eastings0
Northings0

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Calculate Print

Books

  • King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 486 (possible)

Antiquarian

Journals

  • W., 1884, The Builder Vol. 47 p. 79-80