Only slight earthwork remains exist today, although excavations in the middle 1930s revealed a square well and some datable material from the 16th and 17th centuries including farthings from the reign of Charles I. Later, twelfth-century pottery was found on the site.[3]
History
The small Norman castle, built to protect the strategically useful village of South Cerney along the
river Churn, was identified by Bazeley and Kennen, and accepted by other historians as the one built by
Miles of Gloucester during
the Anarchy and captured by King
Stephen's forces in 1139,[4][5][6] but the record of this is uncertain and Renn suggested that
Ashton Keynes Castle was the more likely site for these events,[7] and King mentions that this castle is frequently confused with a castle in
Cerne Abbas, Dorset and a lost castle in
Calne, Wiltshire.[8]
Bazeley, W (September 1878), Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, vol. 3, p. 381
King, David J Cathcart (1983), Castellarium anglicanum : an index and bibliography of the castles in England, Wales and the islands. Volume I : Anglesey - Montgomery, vol. 1, p. 181
Kennen, F (1931), Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, vol. 53, p. 55
Walker, David (1991),
"Gloucestershire Castles"(PDF), Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 109
Further reading
Sewell, Richard Clarke (1846), Gesta Stephani, regis Anglorum et ducis Normannorum, incerto auctore sed contemporaneo, olim ex vetere codice m.s. episcopatûs Laudunensis ab Andrea Duchesne edita, Londini, Sumptibus societatis, pp.
58-61 primary Latin historical source for the mention of this castle in the Anarchy (see page 59).