Medieval ammunition — weighing over 200 pounds — found outside castle in UK. See it
Underneath the manicured lawn of a castle in the United Kingdom sat the remnants of a medieval battle. The “giant” ammunition was largely forgotten — until now.
Construction workers were upgrading the pathways around Kenilworth Castle to increase accessibility when they unearthed a large spherical stone, according to a June 11 news release from English Heritage, the organization responsible for the site.
Archaeologists immediately recognized the stone as ammunition for a medieval catapult.
As the project continued, a total of eight catapult shots were uncovered. The “giant” stones weighed between about 2 pounds to just over 230 pounds, officials said.
“These would have been fired from a catapult during the siege of Kenilworth Castle 1266, when England faced a civil war,” heritage officials said. During this 172-day siege, King Henry III’s troops attacked the rebel forces loyal to his brother-in-law.
A photo shows the 750-year-old ammunition. The smallest stone looks to be about the size of a baseball. The largest one seems more like a boulder.
“These would have caused some serious damage (when) fired from war machines,” Will Wyeth, a historian with English Heritage, said in the release. “Records show that one of Henry III’s wooden siege towers, containing around 200 crossbowmen, was destroyed by just one well-aimed missile.”
The siege ended after the rebel forces inside the castle, suffering from starvation and disease, surrendered to King Henry III’s forces, officials said.
The eight catapult shots “were found pretty much where they would have fallen,” Cathy Coutts, an officer with Archaeology Warwickshire who led the excavation, said in the release.
“We were able to immediately link these findings to the 1266 siege because of similar finds recovered during an archaeological excavation of Kenilworth Castle in the 1960s,” Wyeth said.
“It’s not every day we get lucky enough to stumble across historical remains like this by chance,” he said in the release. “Imagine the surprise of the team working on improving the pathways around the site when they unearthed these impressive stone projectiles that are nearly 800 years old!”
Officials did not specify what will happen with the medieval ammunition. Kenilworth Castle is near Birmingham and a roughly 100-mile drive northwest from London.
This story was originally published June 18, 2024 at 10:43 AM with the headline "Medieval ammunition — weighing over 200 pounds — found outside castle in UK. See it."
