The mystery of Burlow Castle

Three weeks ago, when I was in East Sussex, my friend Jill led me on a lovely long meander through the fields in the Cuckmere Valley. One of our motivations – though, truly, no motivation is needed to meander in this beautiful valley – was to take a look at the intriguing site labelled on the map as Burlow Castle. But was it ever really a castle? Experts and amateurs alike seem divided on the matter. Here’s what I found from a little digging – not literally, as the site is on private land so we couldn’t get too close.

First off, the spelling varies – I’ve found Burlow, Burlough and Burghlow, which certainly adds to your research time when you’re having to do three separate searches. Secondly, there are no actual physical remains of a castle on the site. Now I know that doesn’t necessarily mean there wasn’t once a structure there but even the blurb on the Historic England website acknowledges that a geophysical survey carried out in 1996 ‘indicated possible buried remains but provided no conclusive evidence’.   

Yet the Historic England website’s statement remains positive and very optimistic:

Despite some disturbance in the past, the motte and bailey castle known as Burlough Castle survives well. The earthworks of the castle form a prominent feature in the landscape. The site will contain [my emphasis] archaeological evidence and environmental information relating to the construction, use and history of the castle and the landscape in which it was constructed.

Hmmmm ... doesn’t sound like a terribly scientific analysis. The site itself was scheduled as an ancient monument way back in 1946 and that scheduling appears to have been based partly on its physical appearance – there is no denying the steep escarpment, commanding a fine view of the upper Cuckmere River, would be the perfect place to put a castle or similar defensive structure – and partly on archaeological evidence – ‘Fieldwalking in the area has recovered pieces of 12th and 13th century pottery. Other finds have included Prehistoric flints, axes and a pick as well as Iron Age or Romano-British potsherds’. Nice finds, though that doesn’t sound like a lot if this was the site of a castle. But the scheduling was also based on documentary sources. So what were they?

One of the oft-cited sources is Thomas Walker Horsfield, who published a series of volumes on the history and antiquities of this part of East Sussex. In his The History and Antiquities of Lewes and Its Vicinity (J. Baxter, Lewes, 1824, vol. 2, p. 8) he writes

Burlow Castle is said to have stood on an eminence east of the village. There are certainly now some foundations of walls to be discovered; and fifty years ago there were more, as appears from a drawing by Grimm, preserved in the British Museum. It is impossible, however, to discover either its extent or form, so completely has the hand of Time prevailed; nor has any document been found which can throw any light upon the subject.

The drawing by Grimm that Horsfield refers to is, officially, the ‘1787 – Ruins of Burlow Castle near Alfriston’ by Samuel Hieronymous Grimm, watercolour (174 x 253 mm), © British Library Board – shelfmark: additional MS 5671, item number: f. 60 (no. 107). The painting is in the collections of the British Library but there is an image of it on the Sussex Record Society’s website. Have a look – it’s the third image on the right and, if you click on it, you can see a larger version. Do you see any ruins? I see trees and hedgerows but I don’t see the more substantial walls Horsfield appears to refer to.

Horsfield returns to the topic of Burlow Castle in a later publication, his The History, Antiquities, and Topography of the County of Sussex (Sussex Press, Lewes, 1835, vol. 1, p. 320). In this work he admits that ‘Of its rise and fall, its form or use, tradition is silent and history is dumb’. Yet he goes on to propose, rather fancifully in my opinion, that Burlow was ‘one of the fortresses built by Henry VIII’, though he then undermines his own speculation by admitting that ‘Within the last three years the foundations have been excavated, and two large barns built of the materials. No discovery, except that of a few bones and broken pottery, was made.’ Once again, the lack of any significant discovery makes me doubt the presence of a substantial structure.

So, was there ever a castle on this impressive hilltop? Until such time as a very thorough archaeological excavation is undertaken, I don’t think anyone can say for certain. But, personally, I rather like the sense of intrigue and mystery that has developed around this place. I think Horsfield had succumbed a little to its romantic appeal and, if so, he certainly wasn’t the only one for, not only is Burlow the site of a putative castle, it also has its very own fairy story. This is from The Spectator newspaper, 25 April 1908, p. 27:

There is an old, old Sussex man who can point you out a favourite fairy haunt. You must call the little people “pharisees” when speaking of them, for that is the Sussex reduplicated plural of the word “fairy,” and all the old people speak of them as “pharisees.” The old Sussex man says that a familiar haunt of the pharisees was at Burlow Castle, which is “not much of a castle nowadays,” but which was “a famous place when there was a King in Sussex. A plough-man there was what was once ploughing there, and resting for his 'levener [eleven o'clock lunch] he suddenly heard a curious sound under the ground. He gave a start, and then he heard a liddle voice say, ‘Help! help!’ ‘What's up?’ says the plough-man, when the liddle voice says: ‘I've been baking and have broke my peel [a wooden shovel used by bakers for placing loaves in the oven], and I don’t know what to do, sure-lye.’ ‘Putt it up and I'll mend it,’ says the plough-man; and through a chink in the ground a liddle peel was putt up no bigger than a bren-cheese knife. So the plough-man he sets to work and mends the liddle peel, and then be putts it down again. And the next day a cup of delicious drink was putt up to the plough-man for his 'levener as a reward for mending the peel. But as this here plough-man was a-drinking from the cup he dropped it and broke it to shivers, and within a year he took and died."

Perhaps it’s a very good thing that the castle site is on private land, for who knows what might happen if we could walk there?