Gloucester Castle, Norman castle in Gloucester, England
Gloucester Castle was a Norman fortress in the southwestern part of the city, overlooking the Severn valley. It had a square stone keep at its core and was surrounded by layered defensive walls.
Roger de Pitres, the first Norman Sheriff of Gloucestershire, built the fortress in the decades following the Norman Conquest. Over the centuries it shifted from a military stronghold to a county jail, until it was demolished in 1787.
The site held kings and important prisoners within its walls, marking it as a center of power and authority in the region. This role shaped how local people saw their town for many centuries.
The site is now buried beneath modern streets in Gloucester city center, and almost nothing stands above ground. Nearby museum collections and local archaeological records give a much clearer sense of what once stood here.
Excavations in 2015 uncovered foundations beneath the modern streets that pointed to building methods rarely seen elsewhere in Norman England. These remains are out of sight but changed what archaeologists understood about how medieval builders worked in this part of the country.
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