The long-lost Cambridgeshire castle said to have a secret tunnel

Cambridgeshire has a long history of castles built to defend patches of land – but most haven't made it into the 21st century. Instead, we have various mounds of earth upon which we can superimpose a mental image of a castle, if we squint a little.

One of those lost Cambridgeshire castles gave its name to a tiny village, home to around 700 people. That is, of course, Castle Camps, around 15 miles to the south-east of Cambridge and on the border with Suffolk and Essex.

The site of the castle is believed to have once been used as a Saxon fortress, belonging to a nobleman under the reign of King Edward the Confessor. The Saxon manor was given to a man named Aubrey de Vere by William the Conqueror after the Norman invasion in 1066.

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At that time, it is believed that a motte and bailey castle was built on the site. The castles were not used for purely defensive purposes – they had a significant role in society as centres for tax collections, enforcing the laws of the land, and other tasks that kept things ticking over. The village of Castle Camps most likely grew up around the castle.

Aubrey de Vere and his family had a large amount of land, including another castle in Essex named Hedingham Castle. A blocked-up arch found in the cellars of Castle Camps in the 17th century is believed to have been the entrance to a secret tunnel connecting the two castles, according to The Cambridgeshire Village Book.

If the book – and the sources it used – is correct, the tunnel would have covered a distance of at least 12 miles. The author says of the possible secret tunnel: "Evidence is hard to establish."

The castle no longer exists, with the manor house falling down in 1738, according to a blog by Alan Hardy. A large part of the land was used as an airfield during WWII but now, all that remains is a some rubble memorialised as a scheduled monument.