Whittington Castle

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Whittington Castle 2014

Whittington Castle is a castle in the village of Whittington in the northern part of the English county of Shropshire . The 49,000 m² property is located on Castle Road . It was originally a moth , but was replaced in the 13th century by a castle with buildings around a castle courtyard. Whose outer wall was the curtain wall of the main castle . As the castle of the Welsh Marches , it was built on the border between Wales and England near the historic Fort Old Oswestry . Today the castle is owned and managed by the Whittington Castle Preservation Fund .

In 2003, a historical and archaeological study conducted by Peter Brown and Peter King showed that there were two landscaped gardens in the outer bailey in the 14th century , which were surrounded by water. This discovery provided evidence that English horticulture was very advanced in relation to French and Flemish horticulture . A member of the FitzWarin family had the “lavish” garden laid out. The viewing hill in the center of the garden is probably the oldest of its type that has been discovered in England so far.

history

Whittington Castle c.1778

Whittington is on the English side of Offa's Dyke , which in this area formed the Norman border between England and Wales. Whittington Castle was initially thought to have been built as a Norman mansion , although there is no evidence of it. The property was fortified in 1138 by William Peverel , who supported King Stephen of Blois during the Anarchy . From the end of the 1140s, the manor of Whittington, like those of Oswestry and Overton , no longer belonged to England, but became part of the Powys Kingdom and thus Welsh.

In 1165 King Henry II transferred the castle to Roger de Powys and around 1173 granted him funds to carry out repairs. Roger followed his son Meurig (or Maurice ) and his son Werenoc . A claim by Fulk III. FitzWarin auf die Burg, who probably led this in the name of the Peverels, was not recognized until 1204, which led to his rebellion against Johann Ohneland . FitzWarin was pardoned and Whittington Castle and manor, excluding Overton Castle, were given to him as a fief. The castle then fell to his descendants, who were all called Fulk and from 1295 carried the title of Baron FitzWarine , until the death of Fulk XI. FitzWarin 1420.

In 1223 the castle of Llywelyn from Iorwerth from Gwynedd was conquered and destroyed. After a peace treaty, it was returned and rebuilt in stone. The donjon der Motte tower was replaced by a core castle with buildings along the curtain wall and five towers on a raised site surrounded by a moat . Outside was an outer gatehouse or barbican . For the next half century the castle stood as a bastion defending Shropshire against Welsh invasions until King Edward I took Wales in 1283 .

After the defeat of Llywelyn ap Gruffydd , the castle became the stately home of the FitzWarin family. After the death of Fulk VII. FitzWarin in 1349, however, a long time began in which the inheriting lords were almost always minors and usually did not live in the castle, although some repairs were carried out on the castle around 1402. The manor was devastated in 1404, during the Owain Glyndŵr rebellion , so that it was no longer worth anything in 1407. But the castle was not taken.

As Fulk XI. FitzWarin was underage, his mother and her new husband, William Lord Clinton, owned the castle. At that time there was an argument with the people of Oswestry , who were cutting oak trees in the woods. When the FitzWarin line died out in 1420, the manor fell to Elisabeth , the sister of Fulk XI. FitzWarin , who then married Richard Hankeford . In 1422, Whittington Castle was taken by William FitzWarin , presumably a cousin who claimed the castle as male heir, and Richard Laken by climbing the walls with ladders. Soon it was apparently returned to Lord Clinton. Their daughter Thomasia married William Bourchier ; so the title of Baron FitzWarin came into the Bourchier family. Her grandson, John Bourchier , was named Earl of Bath , but his son, John Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Bath , traded the manor and castle in 1545 under King Henry VIII for some formerly monastic property closer to his home in Devon lay.

Before the property swap, the castle's property was precisely measured and assessed. The assessment describes some buildings as "dilapidated". From then on, the castle itself probably never served as an apartment. Through many hands it finally passed to William Albany , a London merchant Taylor , but he and his descendants (from 1750 the `` Lloyd '' family from Aston near Oswestry, who still own the castle today) lived in Great Fernhill . William's grandson, Francis Albany , got into debt and sold his forest in Babbinswood to Arthur Kynaston of Shrewsbury , who had a refining oven built in Fernhill using bricks from the castle. In 1632 the gatehouse of the castle was leased, whereby the tenant was allowed to "take stones from the castle for free". By the time of the English Civil War , Whittington Castle was apparently no longer in such a defensive state that it could have played any role in the war. In 1673 the castle (or actually just the gatehouse) was leased as a romantic apartment to a Thomas Lloyd , a London merchant, who was probably already retired. In 1760 one of the towers fell into the moat. This and other parts of the castle were used for road construction, probably including the new Turnpike road to Ellesmere in 1776, when William Lloyd was still a minor.

restoration

This photograph of Whittington Castle before its last restoration was published in Thos D. Murphy's work In Unfamiliar England (1910).

The castle is adjacent to the old Holyhead Road and has been noticed by travelers. William Lloyd had the gatehouse restored around 1808 and leased it as a farm. It was used as a residential building until the 1990s.

Whittington Castle is currently owned by the Whittington Castle Preservation Trust , a farming community that was founded in December 1998 and who leased the castle for 99 years in 2002. Recently the Trust completed renovations worth £ 1.5m.

Every year Historia Normannis , a group that reenacts historical events, meets at the castle to re-enact battles that took place in the area during that season.

Legends

One of the most famous legends about Whittington Castle is about Marian Chalice , which some think is the Holy Grail . According to this legend, Sir Fulk FitzWarin , great-grandson of Payne Peveril , was one of the keepers of the Grail at King Arthur's table . A story from the 13th century says that the Grail was kept in a private chapel in the castle when Sir Foulke was there. The coat of arms of Fulk FitzWarin hangs over the gate of the castle.

It is also reported that the castle was part of the manor of a noble Welsh man named Tudor Trefor or Tudor Trevor in both Maelors ( Maelor Saesneg and Maelor Gymraeg ). Although his father Rhys Sais held the former, the rest seems to be an invention of Lewis Dwnn in 1846.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Whittington Castle website . 2012. Accessed August 10, 2015.
  2. ^ P. Brown, P. King, P. Remfry: Whittington Castle: the marcher fortress of the FitzWarin family in Shropshire Archeology and History . Volume LXXIX (2004). Pp. 114-115.
  3. ^ Gill Guest: Escape from Castle Stenches in The Times (United Kingdom) , January 25, 2003. EBSCO no. 7EH0331468242. P. 11.
  4. ^ A b P. Brown, P. King, P. Remfry: Whittington Castle: the marcher fortress of the FitzWarin family in Shropshire Archeology and History . Volume LXXIX (2004). Pp. 107-108.
  5. ^ John Northall: Whittington Castle . Castles of Wales Web Site. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  6. ^ P. Brown, P. King, P. Remfry: Whittington Castle: the marcher fortress of the FitzWarin family in Shropshire Archeology and History . Volume LXXIX (2004). Pp. 110-111.
  7. ^ P. Brown, P. King, P. Remfry: Whittington Castle: the marcher fortress of the FitzWarin family in Shropshire Archeology and History . Volume LXXIX (2004). Pp. 114-116.
  8. ^ P. Brown, P. King, P. Remfry: Whittington Castle: the marcher fortress of the FitzWarin family in Shropshire Archeology and History . Volume LXXIX (2004). Pp. 117-118.
  9. ^ P. Brown, P. King, P. Remfry: Whittington Castle: the marcher fortress of the FitzWarin family in Shropshire Archeology and History . Volume LXXIX (2004). Pp. 120-122.
  10. ^ Normannis - Bringing History To Life . Retrieved October 16, 2010.
  11. ↑ The Marian Chalice: The Holy Grail? . Britannia Internet Magazine, 2000. Retrieved August 10, 2015.
  12. ↑ Tudor Trevor, Lord, Earl and King . Tegaueurvron.com. ( Memento of July 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Retrieved August 10, 2015.

swell

literature

Web links

Commons : Whittington Castle  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 52 '24 "  N , 3 ° 0' 9.4"  W.