Mileham is not well known at all though it is one of the largest sites in Norfolk. A former Norman motte and bailey castle (two baileys again), and an eye-in-training for medieval sites will distinguish the various typical features easily by walking around the grounds. It’s actually quite spectacular: I didn’t have much of a clue of what I was coming to see here, and when I arrived and started moving about, the various moats in between structures, the different baileys stood out very clearly. I think in this sense it might be one of the best places to get an idea what Norman human landscaping meant.
The ruins at this site are not particularly extensive: the base of a tower structure at the very top of the motte is what’s left with no other stone remnant that I could discover. Admittedly, I spent less time here than I could have as the day I was given was particularly rainy and I didn’t want to stay in this weather for too long.
The other thing I am not happy about is that unlike the more well-known places, Mileham doesn’t seem to have much of a recorded history — public online sources refer back to what has been written at the Gatehouse and that doesn’t even mention a potential owner. The lack of such information or even stories about who these people were leaves us in the dark in trying to figure it out — and while for a site such as Horsford I didn’t much care, I do here. Why? I don’t even know… I guess being able to say something concrete happened here would give us that link between an imaginary past and a real present, that link to connect the two and to imagine past events here. Without it, right now, Mileham will stay in the 12th century.
