Gresham Castle

At this place, which is near Cromer, was once a castle belonging to Sir Edmund Bacon, which he was permitted to embattle and crenellate by licence (12 Edward II.). It was a considerable structure, 150 feet square, having round towers, 36 feet in diameter at each corner, according to Camden, who is corroborated curiously by one of the Paston letters (No. 316, dated September, 1471), in which Sir. John Paston sends a rough sketch of the ground plan of Gresham to obtain the measurements of the towers, “by packthread or else measured by yard.” The sketch shows a square block of building with four angle circular towers, boldly projecting from the walls; those on the N.W. and S.W. being of small diameter, the N.E. one much larger, while the S.E. tower is shown of very large dimensions; the drawbridge appears in the centre of the N. front, from which one learns that the moat encircled the castle close to the walls. In the Paston letter No. 31 is mentioned the dispute which the Paston family had in 1450 with Lord Molyns regarding Gresham, which place, Sir William Paston, the judge, had acquired—one half from Thomas Chaucer, and, later, the other moiety, which had been possessed by the ancestors of Sir William, Lord Molyns who was killed at the siege of Orleans in 1428. The manor-house had been built by the Stutevilles before the time of the Bacons. Rye says that Lord Molyns came to Paston’s moated house at Gresham, in the absence of Paston, and besieged it with a force of 1000 men ; he broke open the outer gates, and forcibly carried out the lady of the house, rifled the place of £200 cut the door-posts through, and then left, remarking that if they had found there Paston’s friend, John Damme, they would have killed the said John. (Castles Of England, Sir James D. Mackenzie, 1896)