Unless the Romans established at Catterick had a station there, it seems very probable that before the Norman Conquest the actual site of Richmond was entirely vacant; for, though the Domesday Survey makes mention of one or two names that indicate some lost villages in the neighbourhood, there are no traces in the town of anything earlier than the Norman period. No stones of Saxon origin, so far as evidence exists, have come to light during any restorations of the churches, and the only suggestion of anything pre-Norman is Leland’s mention of those ‘idoles’ that were in his time to be seen in the walls of Holy Trinity Church. For some reason this magnificent position for a stronghold was overlooked by the Saxons, the seat of their government in this part of Yorkshire being at Gilling, less than three miles to the north. The importance of this place, which is now nothing more than a village, is shown by the fact that it gave its name to the Gillingshire of early times as well as to the wapentakes of Gilling East and Gilling West. There was no naturally defensive site for a castle at Gilling, and the new owners of the land familiar with the enormous advantages of such sites as Falaise and Domfront were not slow to discover the bold cliff above the Swale just to the south. Alan Rufus, one of the sons of the Duke of Brittany, who received from the Conqueror the vast possessions of Earl Edwin, was no doubt the founder of Richmond. He probably received this splendid reward for his services soon after the suppression of the Saxon efforts for liberty under the northern Earls. William, having crushed out the rebellion in the remorseless fashion which finally gave him peace in his new possessions, distributed the devastated Saxon lands among his supporters; thus a great part of the earldom of Mercia fell to this Breton.