At the head of the broad water of the Dart Estuary is one of the oldest strongholds of Norman England, the great circular shell-keep of Totnes, which Judhael the Breton built with the leave of William the Conqueror, long before Domesday Book (1086) had been compiled. To him, the King gave a very broad holding in South Devon, 103 manors in all, and Rufus, in return for his fidelity during the baronial revolt of 1193, added the great "Honour" of Barnstaple, forfeited by Robert Mowbray. With the exception of the House of De Redvers, Judhael was, in his later years, the most important landholder in the County of Devon. It was natural, then, that his chief stronghold should be large, as well as strong, and, being of the very earliest Norman type, it was remarkably simple in plan.

Totnes town had been, in Anglo-Saxon days, the largest place in South Devon, after Exeter - it was a mint-town under Kings Aethelred the Unready and Canute. It was built on a conical hill which marks the point where the Dart estuary ceases to be navigable. Judhael occupied the highest corner of the town - its north-western part - and there built a broad oval bailey about 80 yards in diameter. Some two-thirds of its enceinte were protected by the steep slope of the hill, while the other third - that adjoining the town - was cut off by the digging of a deep ditch. On the northern side of the bailey, Judhael threw up an enormous motte with almost precipitous sides and, on top of this, was his inner house of defence. The way up to it was not, as in most mottes, by a straight flight of steps, but by a path cut into the mound and curling round it in circular fashion, so as to be commanded at every part of its ascent from some point of the strong building on the summit.

Presumably both the bailey and inner defences were originally walled with earthwork and palisading alone. But quite early in its history, apparently before 1150, the timber of Totnes was replaced by masonry. The outer wall became a broad stone structure with a rampart walk all around it. The building on the motte was turned into a small shell-keep, some 40 feet in diameter, well furnished with battlements and with a good staircase leading up to them. All the masonry is of small and irregular stones. There is no good ashlar work. A sure sign that the construction was early.

The extraordinary feature of Totnes Castle is that it shows no sign of any building later than the twelfth century. It was apparently never reconstructed by owners of Plantagenet date, either in motte or bailey. There must have been within the enceinte the usual fittings of a medieval castle-hall, chapel, kitchen and so forth; But of what date they were it is not possible to make any con-jecture, for not a trace of them is left. The motte and its tower preside in solitary state over a large open grass-plot and the clearance of inner buildings is as complete as at Launceston or Exeter. They existed once, for Leland, visiting the castle in 1540, saw them in decay: "the castle wall and the strong donjon be maintained, but the lodgings be clene in ruins." Of these ruins not a stone is now left.

Considering its size and strength Totnes Castle has little recorded history. Judhael's son was the last male of his line and the "Honour" was cut up. Half seems to have gone to his grandson William de Braose, the other share is found in the hands of Guy de Nonant, whose connection with the original owner is not known - possibly he was only a grantee. The castle, after the male line of Braose died out, went by inheritance through females to the Lords Zouche of Haringworth in 1273. They held it for just two centuries but John, seventh of that line, was a desperate adherent of King Richard III and was attainted and stripped of his lands after Bosworth Field (1485). King Henry VII gave the castle to Richard Edgcumbe of Cotehele, the soundest Lancastrian in Devon or Cornwall, who had suffered many hardships in the days of Yorkist rule and was entitled to lavish compensation. Piers Edgcumbe sold the lordship to Sir Edward Seymour of Berry Pomeroy, his neighbour, from whom it passed to the Dukes of Somerset, when the disinherited elder branch of Seymour obtained the ducal title, on the extinction of the younger and more favoured line. Which of the Seymours made the final clearance of the residential parts of the old fortress is not ascertainable.

Edited from Charles Oman's "Castles" (1926).