Remains of a fortified manor house once in the possession of the de Cantelupe family, for which Nicholas de Cantelupe obtained a licence to crenelate in 1339. The only remains above ground are built into farm buildings, include square headed decorated window and a pointed door arch. Excavations in 1933 suggested that the house was surrounded by a curtain wall with round towers at each corner. (3)
The "castle" is surrounded by extensive earthworks: a rectangular rampart and ditch surrounding the "castle" and degenerating with the rising ground into a ditch alone, and partly obliterated by the modern road ... Remains of the moat of the manor house, running from the NW to the NE corners of the present farm buildings. (4)
A large rectangular enclosure of bank and ditch at one time extending on its NW side into the churchyard. This has been filled within the St Marys burial area, but clearly extends S to turn SE to include 8 rectangular fishponds, before turning NE to the present major highway. The earthworks are clearly of several phases and incorporate the rectangular moated and walled moat site. These central features are probably earlier with an extension of earthworks to the W and S-SE. The SW area contains straight ridge and furrow which runs downhill, NE-SW. The dairy pasture includes the base of a rounded tower … (contd, but unintelligible). (5)
Detailed site description - see parish file. (6)
Remains of castle. c.1341. (7)
Courtyard of brick-built farm-buildings that reuse early medieval stone elements. Farm building include stable (loose boxes and stalls), barns, milking barn and cart shed. Stable Block: 'Possibly extended or re‐built during the C19, hand‐made brick and retains evidence of a former tack room at ground floor level with protruding wooden pegs. Another ground floor room retains concrete stalls.' (11)
See M8287 for fish ponds, M2334 for church, M2391 for deserted village.
Grid ref centred.

Greasley Castle, a fortified manor house, was called a castle from 1340 (b) when a licence to crenellate his dwelling at `Gryseleye' was granted to Nicholas de Cantelupe by Edw. III. (a) The castle and lands passed through the hands of succeeding owners; the last recorded being Sir John Manners, early 17th c. `Throsby (1797) states that "the mansion of Nicholas de Cantelupe ... is totally destroyed except a plain wall or two." `The remains of the house, including a wall almost 5ft thick and a 14th c. square-headed window, are incorporated in the farm buildings [of Greasley Castle Farm]. Trial excavations, in the summer of 1933, disclosed part of the foundations of a round tower, 20ft in diameter, at the NW corner of the building.

No sign of foundations was found at the NE corner over at a depth of nearly 6 feet, but broken 17th c. (kitchen) pottery was found at a
depth of 3'6" and below. This discovery and Thorsby's statement about the remains of the mansion seems to suggest a date about 1700 as the probable time at which Greasley was abandoned and its destruction begun'. (13)

Manorial stronghold, "Greasley-Seven miles north-west from Nottingham are the ruins of Greasley Castle, built amid earthen defences. A length of vallum on the south of the building, a fosse at right angles, and two other ramparts apparently formed the boundaries of two courts. South-west of the castle is a long length of rampart; at the west end it returns north for a distance of 300ft and at its eastern extremity is a similar return, the angle thus formed is moated and contains a series of parallel hollows. This was no doubt the manorial fish stew and though high and dry on a sloping hillside there is evidence that water once flowed from this spring-fed stew-pond. The rampart of earth south-east is high enough to have held back the water to fill the four stews, though the base of them is 5ft higher than that of the moat". (1)
O.S. published names confirmed. Recent alterations to farm buildings have discovered hitherto unknown architectural details. The north, west and east ranges of the farm buildings to the east of Greasley Castle Farmhouse - incorporate walling of the Md. building. The northernmost wall is formed of irregularly-coursed stone, c1.5m thick and c2.0m high. At its western end are the remains of a tower visible by its abutments against the walling and the remains of a worked stone blocked segmental arch. The arch has been supported by modern brickwork covered in stucco. In the modern brick of the gable of the farm building at this corner are a reused two-light mullioned window and an ornamental stone star. The walling continues for a short distance from this corner along the western wall. There appear to be the remains of the jambs of an entrance near to the abutment of the tower in this length of walling but the walling has possibly been rebuilt. At the north-east corner is the western abutment of a tower but the walling is in very poor condition. A rectangular building forming the east side of the farm buildings is built of reused stone but incorporates short lengths of original walling in its eastern wall. At SK 4911 4711, in this wall, recent alterations have revealed a fine two-centre, Early English arched entrance with worn steps and, to the south, the remains of three trefoil-cusped window heads. The other farm-buildings are of modern brick. (12)

The remains of a dry moat are visible on the north of the buildings. It is c1.5m deep and flat bottomed. Building debris has been tipped into it within the past year. No evidence of the moat's continuation was seen. From the northern corners of the moat runs a large flat-topped bank, averaging 9.0m in width and 1.5m high, forming an irregularly four-sided enclosure. There are no indications of a ditch on the north and east sides but an outer ditch, obscured by a hedgerow, is visible on the south and west. At its northwest corner the bank appears to have abutted on the Md. churchyard - visible within the modern wall as a raised area. The western half of the northern side is mutilated and appears to have been incorporated into later enclosures. This main bank is non-defensive and apparently enclosed the outlying buildings and domestic structures of the manor. In its south-eastern corner is a complex series of fishponds, now dry, with connecting sluices in the extreme south-east corner. At the southwest corner of the ponds there is some slight mutilation for a drain from the present farmyard. The sites of apparent buildings can be seen elsewhere in the enclosure and on the east of the present farmyard is the site of a building, with a dry pond to the south, the whole bounded by a bank with outer ditch - apparently the `two courts' mentioned by Authy. 3.

The features are still as described in 1959 (6) with the following exceptions. Realignment of the main road on the north has meant removal of part of the outer bank of the moat NE of the farm
buildings. Some of the earthworks SE of these buildings have been flattened or filled about a new barn. To the south, east of where the bank is bisected by a track, part of the outer ditch has been obliterated by cattle tread. The east end of the old wall (nearest in the photo) fell but has been restored. (12)

Data Held (Document). SNT2647.

OS card, Parish File

Data Held: Aerial Photograph (Aerial photograph). SNT2645.

CUCAP PR43

Listed buildings slides, (Photograph). SNT2648.

DPD and JEW, ?, Greasley Castle Earthworks, Nottinghamshire
Profiles of the outer earthwork of Greasely Castle; East and South sides. (Unpublished document). SNT6108.

<1> VCH, 1906, Notts, p 311 (Published document). SNT1383.

<2> Thoroton Society, 1955, TTS, pp 98-9 (Published document). SNT369.

<3> Thoroton Society, 1934, TTS, pp 34-53 (Published document). SNT352.

<4> DOE, AM7 - undated, no author (Unpublished document). SNT52.

<5> Hart CR, 1984, AM107 (Unpublished document). SNT754.

<6> Woodhouse WC, 1959, Pers Comm (Personal comment). SNT1437.

<7> CUCAP, Air photos (Aerial photograph). SNT594.

Other Refs: PR43

<8> Thoroton Society, 1995, TTS, p 70-1 (Published document). SNT1525.

<9> Thoroton Society, 1907, TTS, p 41 (Published document). SNT334.

<10> Pevsner N, 1979, The Buildings of England: Nottinghamshire 2nd ed., p 135 (Monograph). SNT4.

<11> Archaeological Research Sevices, 2019, Greasley Castle Farm Assessment Report (Unpublished document). SNT5248.

<12> Historic England, 2021, National Record of Historic Environment (Digital archive). SNT5271.

<13> Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1898, Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward III, Volume 4, 1338-1340 (Published document). SNT6107.