On the Ordnance Survey map this raised mound is annotated as a ‘motte’, a flat-topped mound normally associated with a motte-and-bailey castle. John Walker Ord cites the Elizabethan antiquarian William Camden as being the only mention of a ‘castle’ at Kildale.
It is now thought the mound is a naturally occurring knoll and the site of an unfortified medieval manor house, probably in occupation by the de Percys.
Archaeological excavations between 1957 and 1976 by Roland Close, Raymond Hayes, Don Spratt et al recorded several medieval stone buildings including one, seen in the foreground in the photo, which has been suggested to have been a malting house, because of two large troughs. Other finds included a fragment of an Anglo-Saxon cross and century pottery sherds ranging from Romano-British to the 16th-century.
The view in the photo is north-west towards Capt. Cook’s Monument on Easby Moor.
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