Stockport Castle

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Stockport Castle was a castle on a headland in Stockport in the English county of Cheshire over a ford over the River Mersey . The castle was first mentioned in 1173, but the next mention is only from 1535, when it was already in ruins. The last remains of the castle were removed in 1775.

Location

Stockport Castle was a town castle in Stockport. The medieval city was on the south side of a valley at the confluence of the Goyt and Tame rivers , where they form the River Mersey. The castle grounds are a 10 meter high point made of sandstone over a ford. The castle was flanked by cliffs or steep slopes to the north, south and west.

history

Stockport Castle was first mentioned in 1173 when Geoffrey de Constentyn was there in the revolt of 1173–1174 against the troops of King Henry II. There are local rumors that Geoffrey de Constentyn was actually Gottfried II , a son of Henry II. In fact, Geoffrey de Constentyn was a local lord who owned not only the Stockport manor, but also lands in Staffordshire and Ireland . The courtyard was originally fenced in with wooden palisades and earthworks . At the beginning of the 13th century this was replaced by stone walls. Two fragments of these walls have survived to this day.

Dent says the castle began to deteriorate in the 14th century when the Warren family took over the Stockport manor. Stockport wasn't the only manorial estate in the family; they preferred the manor Poynton . The fact that Stockport Castle was no longer needed shows a trend with other castles in the Greater Manchester region ; in the 13th century there was no evidence of any castle activity in the area except at Dunham Castle . According to the historian John Leland , Stockport Castle was in ruins in 1535. At that time there was still a prison there and a market was held in the castle courtyard. The landlord had divided up and leased the castle grounds. In 1775, George Warren, the then landlord, had the ruins leveled and a cotton mill built on the property. In 1974 excavations were carried out on the mound to determine how long the castle had been in use.

layout

The moth was the common type of fortress in medieval England. It consisted of a usually artificial mound on which a tower or donjon stood. The whole thing was surrounded by a large, fenced-in area near the mound, which was usually used as storage space or for barracks. Stockports Mound was where Castle Yard is now ; earlier the place was called Castle Hill , which influenced the name of the area. The courtyard was southeast of the mound. The castle was probably equivalent in size to castles such as Launceston Castle in Cornwall or Pontefract Castle in West Yorkshire . The donjon on the mound was irregularly shaped and, according to the plans drawn up by the Reverend John Watson , a local historian, in 1775, measured 31 meters by 60 meters. After the leveling of 1775 and 1853, no trace of the donjon remained.

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Stockport Castle . Pastscape. Historic England. English Heritage. Retrieved October 17, 2016.
  2. ^ JS Dent: Recent Excavations on the Site of Stockport Castle in Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society . No. 79 (1977). P. 1.
  3. ^ A b c J. S. Dent: Recent Excavations on the Site of Stockport Castle in Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society . No. 79 (1977). P. 4.
  4. Peter Arrowsmith: Stockport: A History . Stockport MBC Community Services Division, and Stockport Libraries, Stockport, in association with Manchester Archaeological Unit, Manchester 1997. ISBN 0-905164-99-7 . P. 31.
  5. ^ Stockport Castle . Gatehouse Gazetteer. Retrieved October 17, 2016.
  6. ^ A b c J. S. Dent: Recent Excavations on the Site of Stockport Castle in Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society . No. 79 (1977). P. 6.
  7. ^ Brian Grimsditch, Mike Nevell, Norman Redhead: Buckton Castle: An Archaeological Evaluation of a Medieval Ringwork - an Interim Report . University of Manchester Archaeological Unit, Manchester 2007. p. 8.
  8. Peter Arrowsmith: Stockport: A History . Stockport MBC Community Services Division, and Stockport Libraries, Stockport, in association with Manchester Archaeological Unit, Manchester 1997. ISBN 0-905164-99-7 . P. 32.
  9. Stephen Friar: The Sutton Companion to Castles . Sutton Publishing, 2003. ISBN 978-0-7509-3994-2 . P. 44.
  10. Stephen Friar: The Sutton Companion to Castles . Sutton Publishing, 2003. ISBN 978-0-7509-3994-2 . Pp. 22, 214.
  11. ^ JS Dent: Recent Excavations on the Site of Stockport Castle in Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society . No. 79 (1977). Pp. 3-4.

Coordinates: 53 ° 24 ′ 41 ″  N , 2 ° 9 ′ 15.2 ″  W.