Motte and bailey castle.<1>
Norman motte and bailey type structure of which all that remains is a short length of rampart and ditch on a spur of high ground.<2><3> It formerly belonged to the Gernon family.<3> Other refs. <4><5>

The location, to the south of the Church, is recorded on the 1st Edition 1:2500 map (1874-1887) as Birch Castle, site of, with a linear earthwork (bank) aligned ENE-WSW, c.60m long - to the south of the Church of St Peter & Paul, Great Birch. It is not marked on Chapman & Andre's 1777 map but there does appear to be an enclosure marked on the 1st Edition 1:10000 (1800).

Gould records that a field adjoining the enclosure is locally known by the suggestive name 'the bailey.' (Gould 1903, p.284, footnote 3). The meadow to the north-east of the church is still called The Bailey Meadow.
Gould, Chalkley, 1903, 'Ancient Earthworks' in Doubleday, Arthur and Page, Wm (eds), VCH Essex Vol. 1 p. 284. see: http://archive.org/stream/victoriahistoryo01doubuoft#page/284/mode/1up [accessed 9 June 2016]

The VCH records:
The manor of GREAT BIRCH with Birch Castle (sometimes referred to as Birch Hall) was held in 1066 by Edric, and afterwards by Ingelric, and in 1086 of Count Eustace of Boulogne by Hugh who held Easthorpe of the count. Great Birch manor owned two houses in Colchester in 1086, which perhaps served as the lord's town houses, but their use declined after the 11th century. The overlordship was still in the honor of Boulogne in the 14th century, but by 1407 the manor was held of the king in chief.

Hugh's successors held Great Birch in the late 12th century. The manor was granted, with Easthorpe, to Ralph Gernon in 1228, and the demesne lordship of Great Birch descended with Easthorpe to the Gernon and Peyton families and their successors, certainly until 1576 when Arthur Golding succeeded his brother Henry, and possibly until 1586 or later.

Before 1276 one of the Gernons granted the mesne tenancy of Great Birch to a member of the Baynard family, lords of Messing Hall and Harborough manors in Messing. John Baynard died in possession of the manor in 1344, and was succeeded in turn by his son John (d. 1349), John's son Thomas (d. 1375), Thomas's son Richard (d. 1433) whose second wife was Grace, widow of John Peyton, who held the manor of the king in chief. When Richard and Grace Baynard were lord and lady of both Great Birch and the Messing manors they administered those manors and Easthorpe together. They were followed by Richard's son Richard Baynard (d. 1473) whose heir was his daughter Grace, wife of Thomas Langley. Grace died in 1509 and was succeeded by her son from her second marriage, John Daniell (d. 1556) and then by his son Edmund Daniell (d. 1570) who held Birch as of Easthorpe manor.

Edward Elliott (d. 1595) held Great Birch manor in 1586, apparently of the lord of Easthorpe manor, and was succeeded by his son Thomas Elliott. Mark Mott (d. 1631), probably the rector of Rayne, acquired Great Birch manor, and left a third each to his three youngest daughters. Thomas Kemp was lord in 1669. The lordship was held in 1708 by Henry Hene and his wife Jane in Jane's right, between 1732 and 1752 or longer by Ralph Mansell, Jane's second husband, in 1770 by Richard Whitfield, and in the period 1789-1804 by James Hodgkin. In 1811 the manor was bought by Charles Round and was thereafter held with Little Birch manor.

Birch Castle, which stood a few yards south of St. Peter's church, was probably a motte and bailey castle. In 1768 only a mound surrounded by a ditch remained, and in the 20th century just a short section of rampart and ditch. In 1430 the bakehouse at Birch Hall, presumably belonging to the castle or a manor house, was repaired. By 1768 the manor house was said to be a cottage two miles north-west of the church, 'opposite to Gernons, otherwise called the White-house', presumably Whitehouse Farm, Porters Green; it was probably the one used in 1863 then called the White House. A pound was apparently opposite, perhaps the hundred pound.

The manor of LITTLE BIRCH was held in 1066 by Ulwin, and in 1086 of Robert Gernon by Robert de Verley. Robert Gernon's fief escheated to the Crown, and Henry I granted it to William de Munfitchet. On Richard Mun- fitchet's death without issue in 1267, the overlordship passed to Evelyn (d. 1274), daughter of William de Forz count of Aumale, and wife of Edmund earl of Lancaster, who also died without issue, and from whom, presumably, the overlordship came to the de Vere family, earls of Oxford, as part of the honor of Castle Hedingham. The overlordship continued in the de Vere family and was last recorded in the 18th century.<8>
'Birch: Manors', in A History of the County of Essex: Volume 10, Lexden Hundred (Part) Including Dedham, Earls Colne and Wivenhoe, ed. Janet Cooper (London, 2001), pp. 44-46. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/essex/vol10/pp44-46 [accessed 9 June 2016].

The site has not been the subject of any systematic archaeological investigation.