Qualla: Saltwood Castle

Saltwood Castle: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Edgepedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. On the evening of 28 December 1170, four knights of the king's household rode through the gatehouse of Saltwood Castle - Reginald Fitzurse, Hugh de Moreville, William de Tracey, Richard le Breton. They had come from Henry II's Christmas court in Normandy, where they had heard the king say something - exactly what is still argued over - that they took as an order to kill Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. They stayed the night at Saltwood, the home of Ranulf de Broc, one of Becket's most committed enemies. The plotting, the planning, the swordpoints sharpened. The next morning they rode the fifteen miles to Canterbury. By that evening Becket was dead on the cathedral pavement, his blood and brains on the stone, and Christendom had a new martyr.

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Image: Edgepedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Saltwood Castle: Layers Below the Castle

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Whippet, CC BY-SA 2.0. The hilltop at Saltwood had been occupied long before the Normans. Bronze Age implements and copper ingots turned up in Hayne's Wood in 1874 - evidence that someone had been here when bronze was still cutting-edge technology. Local tradition traces the castle's beginnings to 488 ...

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Image: Chris Whippet | CC BY-SA 2.0

Saltwood Castle: What Becket Wanted

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jo Turner, CC BY-SA 2.0. Thomas Becket had asked Henry II to give the castle back to the Church as an ecclesiastical palace. Henry refused. Instead, he gave Saltwood to Ranulf de Broc, one of his loyal barons - and one of Becket's most violent opponents in the long quarrel between the archbishop and the ...

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Image: Jo Turner | CC BY-SA 2.0

Saltwood Castle: The Murder

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Theodore Henry Adolphus Fielding, Public domain. On the afternoon of 29 December 1170, the four knights rode into Canterbury and confronted Becket in the cathedral. Becket refused to come out and explain himself. He refused to leave. He refused to lift the excommunications. According to eyewitnesses, the knights began to argue ...

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Image: Theodore Henry Adolphus Fielding | Public domain

Saltwood Castle: Earthquake, Restoration, Clark

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Open Media Ltd, CC BY-SA 4.0. Saltwood remained Church property until 1540, when Henry VIII forced Archbishop Cranmer to cede it to the Crown during the Dissolution. The castle survived as a residence until 6 April 1580, when the Dover Straits earthquake - the largest known earthquake to affect southern Engla...

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Image: Open Media Ltd | CC BY-SA 4.0