Castle Camps: a lost castle in the Cambridgeshire countryside

In the quiet south-eastern corner of Cambridgeshire, close to the borders of Essex and Suffolk, the village of Castle Camps takes its name from a great medieval castle that has almost entirely vanished. Today fewer than seven hundred people live in the parish, in gentle farmland near the town of Haverhill.

The castle of the de Veres

After the Norman Conquest the manor passed to the powerful de Vere family, the earls of Oxford, who built a castle here that was once said to be magnificent. All that remains above ground is the deep moat and earthworks of the ringwork, now a scheduled monument surrounding a farm, while the medieval village that grew up beside it has long since disappeared, leaving only the church to mark the spot.

Church, airfield and high point

The parish church of All Saints, built largely in the 15th and 16th centuries over the old castle bailey, still stands beside the site. On the plateau to the south-east lies the former RAF Castle Camps, a fighter airfield active during the Second World War, and nearby rises the highest point in the whole of Cambridgeshire.

Visiting

Castle Camps is about twenty-four kilometres south-east of Cambridge, reached by country lanes near Haverhill.