Castlefacts³

Froxton Wood Castle

Has been described as a Questionable Timber Castle (RingworkOther/Unknown)

There are cropmark/slight earthwork remains

Name	Froxton Wood Castle
Alternative Names	Froxston Castle
Historic Country	Cornwall
Modern Authority	Cornwall
1974 Authority	Cornwall
Civil Parish	Whitstone

This earthwork is a roughly circular enclosure, 70m across, but with distinct corners in the north, east and south. On the best preserved south-west side, the ditch is up to 1.4m deep with an outer counterscarp bank up to 0.8m high. It is much reduced by ploughing elsewhere. The entrance was probably on the east. In the interior is a rectangular platform 10.0m by 8.0m, terraced into the hillslope. Peter Rose suggests that this enclosure may be a medieval earthwork, and not a round. Reasons are the sub-rectangular shape and the rectangular platform within the enclosure. The enclosure is visible as cropmarks on aerial photographs and was plotted during the Cornwall NMP. (Cornwall & Scilly HER)

Gatehouse Comments

Not far from Froxton hamlet and the medieval manor house (at SX25679980 - see PastScape no. 436445). Rounds are particularly difficult to differentiate from ringworks and there does seem to be a general assumption that such features in Cornwall are prehistoric. Whilst it is possible this feature may represent a precursor site to the later medieval manor house it is also entirely possible a medieval building of modest social status was placed within a prehistoric feature which seems a more likely explanation in this case.

- Philip Davis

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law

Not Listed

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s)

436442

County Historic Environment Record

www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MCO7956&resourceID=1020

OS Map Grid Reference	SX254997
Latitude	50.7705497741699
Longitude	-4.47708988189697
Eastings	225430
Northings	99700