The Gatehouse website record for Pickering Beacon Hill

In the civil parish of Pickering. In the historic county of Yorkshire North Riding (Modern Authority of North Yorkshire, 1974 county of North Yorkshire).

Motte or ringwork, probably a siege castle, surviving as an earthwork though severely damaged by modern installations. The natural topography of a hill was modified, cutting back the sides to create a steep-sided mound topped by a low bank, and surrounded by a ditch and outer bank. The top of the bank is roughly oval in plan, 30m North-South by 25m East-West. The South and South-Eastern section has been disturbed by the construction of Royal Observer Corps posts sited on the mound. The ROC occupied the mound from at least 1937-1991. The base of the mound is 70m in diameter, and is surrounded by a largely infilled ditch, around which are the fragmentary remains of a bank. No evidence of building within the castle and no bailey.
Suggested as siege castle of the Anarchy (1135-54) or during minority of Henry III (1216-20). There is no history of a siege during the Anarchy but possible damage done to Pickering Castle in 1216/17 so more probably of that date.
Clark cites this as a nameless mound in 1873 but in 1889 he seems to call it Penny Howe, although this name doesn't appear in any other source I've come across.

The Ordnance Survey Map Grid Reference is SE79288443

Sources of information, references and further reading

This site's English Heritage (PastScape) Defra or Monument number is 60320
This site's County Historic Environment Record (formerly Sites and Monuments Record) number is MNY3358 'grey' literature, such as watching brief reports, held by H.E.R.s is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded in this website.

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The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.
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