South Moreton Castle
South Moreton Castle is an old Norman castle from the 11th century in the village of South Moreton, Oxfordshire, England. It was built as a motte-and-bailey design, with a raised mound (the motte) and a walled or fenced area (the bailey). The site sits by Mill Brook close to the village church and today mostly survives as earthworks.
The motte is about 50 metres wide and around 4 metres high, surrounded by a ditch about 15 metres wide. The ditch may have once held water and is still partly filled in winters. The mound was damaged in the late Victorian period, and a long embankment to the west may have been destroyed at that time. Local stories say some Civil War victims were buried on the motte.
About 600 metres to the north, near Saundreville manor house and the railway, there is another fortification. This could be a 12th‑century siege castle built to defend against Empress Matilda at Wallingford. It features a large moated ditch measuring roughly 85 by 130 metres. Another view, however, is that this moat belonged to the nearby manor house and that the siege castle mentioned in the 1140s was actually the old castle overlooking Mill Brook.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 17:12 (CET).