Creully (Canton of Creully, Calvados) Castle

   Creully castle dominates the Seulles valley, in the fiefdom of Hamon le Dentu, one of the resurgent vassals defeated by William the Conqueror at Val-ès-Dunes (1047). The oldest parts of the construction were built in 1060. At one point Creully was owned by Robert Fitz Hamon and then in 1107 passed to Robert de Caen, count of Gloucester, illegitimate son of Henri I Beauclerc. Richard I de Creully, son of Robert, made it his main residence in c. 1147.

Creully once again shows the arrangements of a high ranking lord’s residence of the 12^th of a type particularly well-represented in England, but recognised in three other edifices in Normandy (Beaumont-le-Richard, Bricquebec and Barneville-la-Bertran).

The residence originally consisted of a vast substantially build hall, seventeen metres high, separated from a side aisle with a sloping roof with a series of arcades. This hall was of the aula type where the lord held his meetings. Besides this, forming a rampart along the valley, a long residential building on two floors divided into many rooms, accommodated private apartments. The kitchens and other outbuildings were also joined to this building. A low fully vaulted 12^th century room is preserved.
The great hall was re-worked from the 14^th to the 16^th century, divided into floors and given a Renaissance façade. But the traces of the 12^th century hall can still be seen in the south-east gable (sealed bays, pitch of the roof). 

Bibliography

- Impey, Edouard. - Le château de Creully. – Cabourg : Ed. des Cahiers du Temps, 1995
- Impey, Edouard. - Le château de Creully, in :  L’architecture normande au moyen âge, actes du colloque de Cerisy-la-Salle, septembre 1994. - Caen : Presses de l'Université. Condé-sur-Noireau : Ch. Corlet, 1997, T. 2, p. 315-319.