Buckenham, chief manor of the Hundred of Shropham, belonged to the king. Before the Norman Conquest, it was held by Earl Ralph. At one time a significant settlement fortified by earthworks of early but uncertain date, Old Buckenham was presumably already in decline when William Albini II gave the site and materials of its Norman castle to the community of Augustinian canons he had founded there in 1146, for the construction of their priory. William had other castles nearby, notably at New Buckenham, the town which he himself planted in the 1140s-50s.