Lilbourne Castle

On the W. of the county, near where the Watling Street crosses the lesser Avon, and enters Warwick and Leicestershire, and where the Romans had their station of Tripontium. Here are traces of their encampments on each side of the river. Upon the bank of the Avon, which is quite a small stream here, are traces of an ancient castle, dating from the reign of Stephen. Bridge says that there is a square piece of ground here, which appears to have been raised, at the S.E. and S.W. corners of which are hillocks, where, perhaps, stood corner towers, and a bank of earth runs where the curtain wall would have been; the area of the whole is only one-fifth of an acre. From the situation it is possible that the ground was originally occupied by Brito-Roman works. To the N.W. is a large high mound, upon which, according to tradition, there stood a fort, or watch tower, out of which it is said the churches of Lilbourne and Clay Coton were built. (Morton.)

Temp. Stephen the lordship was held by Gerard de Camvile, who had his chief residence in the castle, and was succeeded by his son, the founder of Combe Abbey in Warwickshire. The Camville family, failing in heirs male (temp. John), their lands came to three female heirs portioner, sisters to the last Roger de Camvile, whose husbands were certified in the reign of Henry III. to hold these lands of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester. At his forfeiture they went with the rest of his estates to Henry’s second son, Edmund Crouchback, and after him to his son Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, who (9 Edward II.) was superior lord of Lilbourne and its members. One of Roger de Camvile’s sisters was married to Thomas de Astley, and (temp. Edward III.) his portion of Lilbourne was owned by Sir Thomas Astley, and these lands in course of succession came to his descendant, Thomas Grey, marquis of Dorset, who died seised of the manor of Lilbourne (22 Henry VIII.). In Bridge’s time the possessor was Mr. Hinde, who inherited the manor from his ancestors.

The walls of the castle have quite vanished. There is another mound, half a mile W. of the village, with traces of a moat round it, and a third near the Watling Street, S. of Dovebridge. (Castles Of England, Sir James D. Mackenzie, 1896)