Photographs of Mountfitchet Castle
Click on an image to see the full picture
Mountfitchet Castle is in Stansted Mountfitchet in north-west Essex
and is very close to Stansted Airport. Stansted was a Saxon settlement
(the name means 'stony place' in Saxon) and pre-dates the Norman invasion
of England.
The castle was built soon after the Battle of Hastings in 1055 by Robert
de Gernon who came with William the Conqueror. His son William dropped
the name of Gernon and took the name of Mountfitchet. Hence Stansted Mountfitchet.
Richard de Mountfitchet was one of the knights opposing King John in 1212
and was one of the signatories to the Magna Carta in 1215. King John
attacked the castle and the site lay overgrown and forgotten for over 700
years. Only the mound remained of his castle remains, around which a
reconstruction of an early Norman castle and village has been built.
