Dominating the small market town of Totnes, in Devon, this shell keep raised on its motte is one of the most perfect examples of a Norman castle in the south-west. Its Tudor history is one of a gentle transition: having entered the age of the Renaissance, it was there only a symbol, not a living residence.
A Norman motte castle
Totnes is a motte castle, topped by a stone shell keep, surrounded by curtain walls and ramparts going back essentially to the fourteenth century. Built of Devonian limestone and red sandstone, it dominates the Dart valley and offers a panorama over the town. It is the archetype of the medieval fortress: designed to assert Norman domination over a conquered borough, it had played its role well before the arrival of the Tudors.
The quiet entry into the Tudor age
In 1485 — the very year of Bosworth — the castle passed to Sir Richard Edgecombe, a faithful supporter of Henry Tudor, rewarded for his support of the victor. But in the sixteenth century, Totnes was already no longer an active residence: it was a symbolic vestige, a mark of possession and prestige rather than a place of life. It thus illustrates the fate of so many medieval fortresses that entered the Tudor age without much refitting — neither razed nor transformed, simply left to their stone stillness, while their owners built more comfortable houses elsewhere. It is this absence of transformation that has preserved it so well. To see: the shell keep on its motte, the ramparts and curtain walls (about fourteenth century), the Devonian limestone and red sandstone, the panorama over Totnes.
Did you know?
If Totnes has come down to us in so pure a state, it is precisely because the Tudors did nothing with it: unlike so many castles turned into houses or razed, it remained a sleeping symbol. The gentry who owned it preferred to live in comfortable manors; the old keep, for its part, watched over the town untouched — preserved by indifference itself.
Notes
Totnes Castle lies at Totnes, Devon; a castle run by English Heritage, open to visits. Seasonal hours to check.
Quiz
- What type of castle is Totnes?
- A shell keep on a motte (Norman)
- An artillery fort
- A prodigy house
- To whom did it pass in 1485?
- Sir Richard Edgecombe, supporter of Henry Tudor
- Cardinal Wolsey
- The monks
- What was Totnes in the sixteenth century?
- A symbolic vestige, not an active residence
- A great royal palace
- A war harbour