when was the royal castle in england built
Windsor Castle Windsor Castle was originally built by William the Conqueror in the decade after the Norman conquest of 1066.[73] William established a defensive ring of motte and bailey castles around London; each was a day's march – about 20 miles (32 km) – from the city and from the next castle, allowing for easy reinforcements in a crisis.[73] Windsor Castle, one of this ring of fortifications, was strategically important because of its proximity to both the River Thames, a key medieval route into London, and Windsor Forest, a royal hunting preserve previously used by the Saxon kings.[74] The nearby settlement of Clivore, or Clewer, was an old Saxon residence. The initial wooden castle consisted of a keep on the top of a man-made motte, or mound, protected by a small bailey wall, occupying a chalk inlier, or bluff, rising 100 ft (30 m) above the river.[75] A second wooden bailey was constructed to the east of the keep, forming the later Upper Ward.[76] By the end of the century, another bailey had been constructed to the west, creating the basic shape of the modern castle.[76][nb 5] In design, Windsor most closely resembled Arundel Castle, another powerful early Norman fortification, but the double bailey design was also found at Rockingham and Alnwick Castle.[78]
Motte-and-bailey castle The earliest purely documentary evidence for motte-and-bailey castles in Normandy and Angers comes from between 1020 and 1040, but a combination of documentary and archaeological evidence pushes the date for the first motte and bailey castle, at Vincy, back to 979.[3] The castles were built by the more powerful lords of Anjou in the late 10th and 11th centuries, in particular Fulk III and his son, Geoffrey II, who built a great number of them between 987 and 1060.[51] Many of these earliest castles would have appeared quite crude and rustic by later standards, belying the power and prestige of their builders.[52] William the Conqueror, as the Duke of Normandy, is believed to have adopted the motte-and-bailey design from neighbouring Anjou.[53] Duke William went on to prohibit the building of castles without his consent through the Consuetudines et Justicie, with his legal definition of castles centring on the classic motte-and-bailey features of ditching, banking and palisading.[54]