Stafford Castle
Stafford Castle is a ruined castle 2 miles west of Stafford , just off the Stafford to Newport road in the English county of Staffordshire . You can see them on the east side of the M6 motorway . The stone building is an important early example of a neo-Gothic donjon . It was built on the foundations of its medieval predecessor and contains many of its original pieces of wall.
history
Middle Ages and early modern times
Sometime in the 1070s, a wooden castle was built here at the behest of the Norman nobleman Robert de Tosny . De Tosny had received a large piece of land in this area from William the Conqueror to control the still hostile and rebellious ancestral Anglo-Saxon community. Shortly before the castle was built, Eadric the Wild had led a failed rebellion that culminated in the defeat of the Anglo-Saxons at the Battle of Stafford in 1069. The first fortress was a classic motte , but with two outer castles and a village below. The outlines of the fortifications of that time can still be seen today. The ramparts and moats were drawn by an archaeological illustrator whose watercolors can be seen on an educational trail that encircles much of the 4 hectare site. The entire nature trail takes 45 minutes, but it can be shortened to 15 minutes (panels 1–5 and then up the doorway of the inner courtyard) or 10 minutes (panels 1 and 10, up the modern driveway). There is a map on each of the boards so it is difficult to get lost.
The castle was originally a fortification made of wood and earth, built on altered boulder clay . The moth's man-made plain is still clearly visible, as are many of the trenches. The earthwork covers over four hectares; behind it is light woodland (6.4 hectares) that was once cleared to accommodate pets. Beyond these earthworks there were once three medieval deer parks.
Ralph de Stafford signed a contract with a master builder in 1347 to build a castle on top of the old motte. The rectangular, stone donjon originally had a tower on each corner. Later, however, a fifth tower was added in the middle of the north wall (which actually faces west). About three years later, Ralph, who was one of the king's leading commanders in the first phase of the Hundred Years' War, was named Earl of Stafford , a special honor.
In 1444 Humphrey Stafford was named the first Duke of Buckingham and the castle reached its peak. Humphrey's grandson, Henry , became an officer of the Yorkists after Humphrey's death at the Battle of Northampton in 1460 . Henry Stafford was initially a supporter of Richard III. , but later rebelled by participating in the aborted invasion of Heinrich Tudor in 1483. He paid with his life for it, but his son, Edward , got away and later got his lands back from a grateful Henry VII.
Edward Stafford's royal blood made him a threat to King Henry VIII , who had him executed in 1521. The Stafford estate, which consisted of the castle and its deer parks, was requisitioned for the Crown. The king's auditors thought of the deer in the parks and thought the castle might be a suitable stopover on one of the king's grand entrances.
Stafford Castle was returned to the Staffords along with a small piece of land, but they never regained the wealth and status of earlier years. A lack of entertainment led to the dungeon's decline and in 1603 Edward Stafford referred to it in a letter as "my rotten castle of Stafford".
In the early stages of the English Civil War , the castle was defended by Lady Isobel , a devoted Catholic and royalist . The Roundheads captured the town of Stafford on May 15, 1643 after a brief siege, but part of the garrison managed to escape and held Stafford Castle in hopes of using the castle as a beachhead to recapture the town.
Colonel John Brereton rode up to the castle with some men and tried to get Lady Stafford to surrender, but she refused. In response, “some of the poor outbuildings were set on fire to see if it would ease their minds. All in vain, because from the castle they shot some of our men and horses, which in turn angered the rest of our men and incited them to wild revenge. Almost all residential and auxiliary buildings were burned down to the ground. "
The siege ended when Colonel Henry Hastings brought in a relief force that arrived on June 5th. Lady Isobel was later convinced to leave the castle, leaving a small garrison behind to defend the castle against another siege. Eventually, in late June, the royalist garrison fled after hearing that a large parliamentary army was approaching with a series of siege engines that could have easily overpowered the remaining garrison. The castle thus fell into the hands of the Roundheads, in which it remained until it was destroyed.
On December 22nd, 1643, a few months after its capture, the Stafford Parliamentary Committee ordered: "The castle shall be destroyed for now." The order was carried out with the loss of a crowbar!
When the traveler and diary writer Celia Fiennes came through the country town in 1698, she noted:
"... the castle which is now ruinated and there only remains on a hill the fortified trenches that are grown over green." (Eng .: "(...) the castle, which is now destroyed and there are only the fortified ditches on a hill that are overgrown with green." )
Victorian period
From 1813 the castle was partly rebuilt in a neo-Gothic style, but the work was stopped partly due to a lack of financial resources and partly because the Jerningham family was raised to the nobility (one of their motives for the restoration project). Many thought the castle was a folly , which it never was, because the donjon was always intended for residential purposes and it was inhabited well into the 20th century.
English Heritage has listed Stafford Castle as a Grade II Historic Building. It is open to the public and can be seen from the M6 motorway .
The keep had been occupied by administrators since Victorian times . Many Stafford residents can still remember the last steward couple, Mr and Mrs Stokes , who gave tours of the property and offered tea and homemade cake for 3 d. During the winter, Mr and Mrs Stokes went shopping at local farmers and pulled their groceries up to the castle in a sleigh. A resident of Stafford remembers visiting the keep once and his friends in the middle of winter, but Mrs. Stokes refused to show them around and sent them away - the boys whizzed down the driveway on their sleds. Another boy made a “Stafford Knot” (a special pretzel shaped knot) in the lead water pipe at the bottom of the driveway - apparently the 1940s were a time of “creative vandalism”.
post war period
In the first post-war years, the re-grown, light woodland around the donjon was cleared, which may have meant that the buildings were increasingly exposed to storms. In 1949, larger parts of the masonry fell from the towers, so the buildings had to be classified as unsafe. Mr. and Mrs. Stokes, the final stewards of the castle and estate, left the buildings that winter. Unfortunately the site was vandalized and in 1961 Lord Stafford turned the donjon over to the local authorities. A little later a boy died when he fell from the unsecured south facade. In 1962 the towers and the remains of the north wing were dismantled and secured to the level of the north facade. Many people still believed that the castle was a Georgian-era folly, even though local historians were well aware of not only the history of the castle but that of the Stafford family as well.
In 1978 excavations revealed the complex structure of the property that had been the seat of one of the region's most important families for generations. An educational trail was laid out in 1988, and three years later a purpose-built museum and souvenir shop opened on the premises.
In summer there are events on the castle grounds, the most famous of which are annual performances of Shakespeare .
literature
- (Editor) Staffordshire County Council Education Department: Stafford Castle , Stafford 1979, 38 pages
- Iain Soden: Stafford Castle: Survey, Excavation and Research 1978-98. The excavations , Volume 2, Stafford Borough Council, Stafford 2007, ISBN 9780952413639 , 242 pages
Individual evidence
- ^ A b John Darlington, Iain Soden: Discussion in Iain Soden (editor): Stafford Castle Survey, Excavations and Research 1978–1988 . Volume 2: The Excavations . Stafford Borough Council, Stafford 2007. ISBN 978-0-952413-63-9 . Pp. 190-191.
- ↑ a b Stafford Castle (Remains) . Heritage Gateway. Retrieved July 8, 2015.
Web links
- Stafford Castle and Visitor Center . Stafford Borough Council.
- Stafford Castle . CastleUK.
- Stafford Castle . Stafford Town.
Coordinates: 52 ° 47 '50.3 " N , 2 ° 8' 48.5" W.