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Page 1 of 2  Early Aldbrough At the time of the Norman Conquest - 1066 - all the land in what is now Richmondshire was part of the great possessions of the Saxon Earl, Edwin of Mercia. Under Edwin, one Thor held a manor of eight carucates at Aldbrough, a carucate or oxgang being that amount of land which could be ploughed by one team of eight oxen.
After the Battle of Hastings, Edwin submitted to William the Conqueror but later revolted and in attempting to escape to Scotland, was pursued by a party of Norman horsemen, betrayed to them by his attendants and slain. Three years after Hastings, William having returned to his dukedom in Normandy the English turned against the conquerors in various parts of the country, especially in the North where they were supported by an army sent by the Danish king. They took Durham and slaughtered the garrison and moved to York. William returned from Normandy and laid siege to York, which fell to him after much bloodshed and treachery. During the siege, Alan the Red, one of the four sons of the Duke of Brittany who had fought with William at Hastings, so distinguished himself that William on the field of battle, conferred on him the Saxon honour of Earldom and granted to him all the lands and liberties formerly held by the said Edwin.
Edwin's manors of residence had been at Gilling West and Catterick but these manors and indeed all the land in a sixty mile stretch from York to Durham had been laid waste and 100,00 men, women and children slaughtered by William in revenge for the uprising. The remnants of the English and their northern neighbours were somewhat naturally hostile and Alan therefore needed a defensible base and in 1071, he laid the foundations of a castle at a strong point overlooking the River Swale and named it Riche-Mont.
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Early Aldbrough 
