The Normans built a wooden motte-and-bailey castle at Canterbury in 1066, soon after the Battle of Hastings. It guarded the Roman road from Dover to London, the route William the Conqueror took, and was one of three original royal castles in Kent, with Rochester and Dover. The great stone keep was largely built in the reign of Henry I, between 1100 and 1135.
The ruined keep is mainly flint and sandstone rubble. It measures about 98 by 85 feet at its base and was probably at least 80 feet high. The mound in Dane John Gardens is probably the original motte. By the thirteenth century it was the county jail, and in the nineteenth century a gas company used it for storage and the top floor was destroyed.
The council has owned it since 1928. It has been closed since 2018 because of falling masonry.
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