At Swallowtail Archaeology, our research is driven by original thinking, a deep contextual understanding, and a commitment to returning to the sources – always inquisitive, always detailed, and always asking what the landscape is really trying to tell us. This approach is at the heart of my published research work at Dodleston, where layered histories and overlooked details reveal a remarkable story of continuity for what are humble earthworks today – from prehistoric ring to early medieval assembly site, to Norman frontier stronghold.

 Tucked into the western fringe of Cheshire and brushing against the east of the Anglo-Welsh border, Dodleston Castle offers a compelling case study of continuity and transformation across centuries. While it has often been interpreted as a modest Norman motte-and-bailey, my ongoing research reveals that the site preserves much older and deeper layers of significance. Through archaeological, place-name, and landscape study, I propose that Dodleston began as a prehistoric ring site, was repurposed as an early medieval assembly place, possibly evolved into a Welsh-influenced ecclesiastical enclosure, and was later overwritten by Norman castle-building.

Dodleston is a classic palimpsest of assembly and authority, situated within what I have termed the Irish Sea Cultural Zone — a dynamic region of cultural exchange and shifting frontiers spanning the northern Anglo-Welsh border and the greater Irish Sea world. In this context, the site should not be understood solely in military terms, but as a persistent place of gathering, governance, and belief.

 From Prehistoric Enclosure to Assembly Site

The circular form of Dodleston’s earthworks strongly suggests a prehistoric origin — possibly an Iron Age ringwork or ritual enclosure. Such forms, found widely across Britain, were often reinterpreted and reused in later periods as focal points of community identity and decision-making. In the case of Dodleston, this continuity appears to span millennia, shaping the site’s function as a meeting place.

By the early medieval period, Dodleston likely developed into a hundredal assembly site, playing a role in local governance, dispute resolution, and regional identity. Its position on the boundaries between multiple medieval hundreds (administrative areas), and also within the strategic zone west of the head seat of Chester at Cheshire, supports this interpretation.

A Llan in the Landscape?

There is also evidence to suggest a religious dimension to the site in the early medieval period. The earthwork’s enclosed form, and its continued importance, raise the possibility that Dodleston may have functioned as a llan-type site — a form of ecclesiastical enclosure typical of early Christian Wales and the Marches. These sacred enclosures often developed from pre-existing ritual or assembly spaces, blurring secular and sacred functions in the landscape.

Crucially, this possibility is not merely theoretical. Today, St Mary’s Church, a medieval-founded parish church, stands to the north-east of the ringwork, encroaching directly upon the earlier earthworks. The church’s location provides strong evidence for the continuity of ecclesiastical focus at the site, suggesting that Dodleston retained spiritual or communal significance even after its transformation into a Norman stronghold.

Norman Reuse and the Rewriting of Place

Following the Norman Conquest, Dodleston was reimagined once again — this time as a ringwork castle, later expanded into a motte-and-bailey. This transformation did not erase the site’s earlier functions but built upon them. The Normans frequently constructed their castles on earlier meeting sites and sacred spaces, harnessing their symbolic power while asserting new forms of control.

Dodleston became a node in a defensive chain of castles stretching along both sides of the River Dee, designed to protect Chester and extend influence into the contested Welsh borderlands. The castle’s strategic placement was no accident: it was an intervention into an already meaningful landscape.

The Lost Hundred of Dudestan?

Place-name evidence further supports Dodleston’s significance as a historic assembly place. Though listed in Domesday Book as Dodestune (1086), the site lay within  Dudestan Hundred, whose meeting place has never been securely identified. While some place-name specialists question a grammatical link between Dodestune(Dodleston) and Dudestan (Dudestan Hundred), I argue that we must allow for phonetic evolution, landscape context, and lost toponymy.

Given Dodleston’s prominence as a pre-Conquest manor held by Earl Edwin, and its role as the later caput (head manor) for Osbern fitzTezzo (who had burgesses in Chester tied to his manor here), it remains a plausible candidate for Dudestan’s hundredal assembly place. At the very least, it was a landscape of overlapping jurisdictions and enduring administrative centrality.

Reading the Palimpsest

Today, Dodleston Castle survives as an earthwork — a shadow of its fortified past — but its story is far from static. The continued presence of St Mary’s Church, still active within the boundary of the former ring, is a testament to the site’s spiritual and communal relevance through to the present day.

Dodleston is not merely a Norman military relic; it is a multi-period assembly site, shaped by prehistoric presence of power, early medieval governance, ecclesiastical continuity, and feudal control. Each phase is inscribed upon the last, creating a deep-time palimpsest of borderland identity.

Understanding such places demands a cross-period, interdisciplinary approach — one that draws together archaeological survey, landscape analysis, place-name study, and administrative history. Only then can we fully appreciate the enduring significance of assembly places like Dodleston within the Irish Sea Cultural Zone, where cultural boundaries were always fluid, and place was always political.

Further Reading

Swallow, R. E. 2024       Domesday and Castles: Patterns of Continuity and Change in North-East Wales, in Archaeologia Cambrensis, 222, 137–168. 

Swallow, R. E. 2022       Shifting Border, Shifting Interpretation: The Anglo-Welsh border and Dodleston Castle, Cheshire, The Borders of Early Medieval England, Offa’s Dyke Journal 4, 154-76

Swallow, R. E. 2021       Forests and Elite Residences of the Earls of Chester in Cheshire, c. 1070 – 1237, in S. D. Church (Ed.), Anglo-Norman Studies XLIII, Proceedings of the Battle Conference 2020, pp. 15 – 37.

Swallow, R. E. 2016      Cheshire Castles of the Irish Sea Cultural Zone, The Archaeological Journal, 173, issue 2, pp. 288 – 34.

Swallow, R. E. 2014       Palimpsest of Border Power: The Archaeological Survey of Dodleston Castle, Cheshire, in Cheshire History Journal, 54, pp. 24 – 51