When the reviewer began his interest in castles in 1970, under the guidance of one of the authors (Derek Renn, our Fellow and one of many past and present Fellows involved in castle studies), while working at the Society, the excavations by the late John Kent at the modest castle of South Mimms were among the first earth-and-timber sites to be brought to his attention, along with Brian Davison's work at Sulgrave, Northamptonshire.
The motte and bailey had been rediscovered in 1918 but it was not until the 1950s that progress was made regarding the understanding of the castle, with Renn's study published by the Barnet and District Record Society in 1957. This was followed by Kent's excavations of 1960–7, published by the Barnet and District Local History Society in 1968 as a pamphlet.
Apart from visual clues, such as the Bayeux Tapestry, little was known about mottes and timber superstructures in Britain until Brian Hope-Taylor's work at Abinger, Surrey, published a decade before Kent began excavating at South Mimms. The structure at South Mimms, probably built during the Anarchy by Geoffrey ii de Mandeville, Earl of Essex (d 1144), between 1136 and 1142, consisted of a wooden tower on a foundation of flint, about which, and at the same time, a mound of earth or motte was piled. Access to the tower was through a revetted passage or tunnel, and evidence was also uncovered for the bridge that would have linked the bailey to the motte.
The castle was short-lived, but precisely when it was destroyed is a matter for debate, although the balance of probability for the authors is around 1144. However, almost 200 coarse-ware pottery vessels were discarded in the ditch at the time of the destruction of the tower by fire, and it appears that pottery experts would be happier with a late twelfth-century date for the fabrics, rather than a mid-twelfth, but further work is needed on this particular aspect. Both before and after Kent's death in 2000, much of the excavation archive had been scattered, and some of the finds lost, and it is much to the credit of the committee of volunteers who worked on the archive from 2006 to 2010 that this book has appeared.
The report, expensive for its modest length, is based on the drafts prepared by Kent and Streeten, and has been edited, extended and updated by Renn. All those involved with the publication deserve our thanks, for although our general knowledge about the site has been available for some time, and various authors make mention of the results (for example, Higham and Barker Reference Higham and Barker1992), to have the final report is invaluable, both in terms of castle studies and the finds. Chapter 6 emphasises how much more can still be done, however, but that work will require adequate funding.
