THE LOST CASTLES OF THE NORTH-WEST

By Margaret Brecknell

North-West England is home to some of the most wellpreserved castles in the country. Lancaster, Chester and Clitheroe Castles immediately spring to mind.

However, some similar once impressive structures in this region have been largely lost to posterity. Here are the stories of five of them.

Greenhalgh Castle Garstang

GREENHALGH CASTLE, GARSTANG

Now little more than a few stones in a farmer’s field, Greenhalgh Castle once played an important role in the defence of lands owned by the influential 15th-century nobleman, Sir Thomas Stanley. Such was the extent of Stanley-owned territory in the county during this period that it was once said there was not a single part of Lancashire where he did not hold some piece of it. Having acquired significant tracts of land as a result of backing the winner, King Henry VII, at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, Stanley was then given further estates in the county by the monarch for successfully quelling an uprising two years later.

His new property included lands between Lancaster and Preston, previously held by Sir James Harrington. In August 1490 Stanley was granted a licence by the King to build a castle on the site of Harrington’s former manor house, close to the town of Garstang. The fortification was constructed on top of a small hill which was surrounded by marshland, with only one narrow causeway providing access to firmer ground. This position fulfilled two allimportant requirements, providing good views in every direction and making it easily defendable in case of attack. The castle’s outer stone walls are believed to have formed a rectangle around a central courtyard, with a tower at each corner.

Sir Thomas Stanley is not thought to have stayed at Greenhalgh Castle for any significant period, but it served as an important garrison for his own private army of soldiers.

Successive generations of the Stanley family continued to wield considerable influence at court and when the English Civil War broke out in the early 1640s, it was little surprise when Sir James Stanley sided with King Charles I in opposition to the Parliamentarians. By 1643, however, the enemy had largely seized control in Lancashire and Greenhalgh Castle remained as one of the few Royalist strongholds in the county.

The castle was placed under siege by Parliamentarian forces, who are believed to have made their headquarters in nearby Garstang,

Footpath leading to Greenhalgh Castle

Bury Castle Excavations – Credit “Jolmartyn/CC BY-SA 3.0”

probably on the site of what is now the Royal Oak pub. The garrison at Greenhalgh Castle, which was led by Captain Nicholas Anderton of Claughton, resisted the siege for well over a year and only finally surrendered, in May 1645, following Anderton’s death.

Under the terms of their surrender, the soldiers at Greenhalgh Castle were allowed to return home unharmed. Sir James Stanley fared less well, as did the castle itself. Following the end of the Civil War and the Parliamentarians’ ultimate victory, Stanley was executed for treason at Bolton in October 1651. As for Greenhalgh Castle, orders were given for it to be dismantled so that it could not be used for military purposes again.

Today, only a part of the western tower remains standing. The ruin is located on privately owned land, but it is possible to view it from the nearby public footpath.

BURY CASTLE

When, in 1469, Sir Thomas Pilkington sought permission from the king to fortify his medieval manor house in the town of Bury, the property was probably already around 150 years old. The royal licence gave Pilkington permission “to construct walls and turrets with stone, lime and sand… and to embattle, crenellate and machicolate those towers”.

Pilkington’s desire to fortify his property may well have been motivated by his involvement in the Wars of the Roses. His concerns proved to be well-founded. He was an active supporter of the Yorkist cause and when the last monarch from the House of York, Richard III, was defeated at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, Pilkington was stripped of his lands including Bury Castle. It will probably come as little surprise to discover that the Pilkington family’s estates were then handed to Sir Thomas Stanley. Stanley had little need for Bury Castle and when a historian called John Lleland visited the area half a century later, he described the castle as a “ruin”. The building may have just been left to rot, or it is quite possible it was deliberately vandalised to prevent any further use as a fortification.

For centuries the remains of Bury Castle lay hidden from view. Victorian workmen discovered a section of the building’s foundations, whilst laying new drains in 1865, but it was more than a century later before members of the Bury Archaeological Group carried out a proper excavation of the site and uncovered some remarkable finds, with artefacts dating back to medieval times. Following more recent restoration work, a section of the castle’s foundations is now on permanent public display.

LIVERPOOL CASTLE

A bronze plaque on the Victoria Monument in Derby Square, close to the city centre, marks the spot once occupied by Liverpool’s impressive medieval castle.

The castle’s origins date all the way back to the port of Liverpool’s earliest years. During the first part of the 13th century, the then monarch, King John, was looking to expand his interests in Ireland and was looking for a suitable location on the North-West coast from which his fleet could operate. The site on which the city of Liverpool now stands was identified as being an ideal location and in 1207 the King issued a Royal Charter, which granted the area official status as a free borough.

Work on building a castle to protect the new port began soon after this date under the supervision of royal favourite, William de Ferrers, the 4th Earl of Derby. No records of the original plans survive, but Liverpool Castle is described in a 1347 document as being moated with four towers.

The castle is known to have undergone significant restoration work before the visit of King Edward II in 1323. However, the expenditure involved in keeping a structure of this kind in a good state of repair was prohibitive. A survey of the castle two centuries or so later concluded that it was in a state of “utter ruin and decay” and was in need of significant restoration work, as “otherwaies it were a grate defacement unto the saide towne of Litherpole”. The cost of the repairs was estimated to be the then considerable sum of £150.

Like so many other of the NorthWest’s fortified buildings, Liverpool Castle’s fate was decided by the role it played during the English Civil War. At the start of the war Liverpool was firmly in the Royalist camp, but after a bloody battle in May 1643

Liverpool Castle Plaque on Victoria Monument – Credit “John Bradley/CC BY-SA 3.0”

Liverpool Castle Ruin at Rivington

Parliamentarian forces took control of the town. In what became known as the “Siege of Liverpool”, the Royalists regained control of the castle, but following the conclusion of the Civil War the victorious Parliamentarians gave the order for Liverpool Castle to be partly destroyed to ensure that its days as a military stronghold were over.

By the early 1700s the castle was in ruins and, in 1726, was demolished completely so that a new church (which is itself no longer standing) could be constructed on the site.

In the early 20th-century, a project to construct a replica of the castle ruins, close to the village of Rivington, near Chorley, was commissioned by wealthy industrialist, William Hesketh Lever. Work on the replica Liverpool Castle proceeded slowly and had still not been finished by the time Lever died in 1925. However, this building, itself now a ruin, provides an insight into how one of Liverpool’s lost architectural treasures may have once looked.

PENWORTHAM CASTLE

Penwortham Castle was built only decades after William the Conqueror’s victory at the Battle of Hastings by 11th-century Norman nobleman, Roger de Poitou. Under the Domesday Book entry for Penwortham in 1086 it is noted that “now there is a castle”.

The Norman castles of this era usually followed the same “motte and bailey” design. A wooden keep was constructed on top of a huge artificial mound of earth (known as the “motte”). The “bailey” was the enclosed area at the foot of the motte, which was surrounded by a tall wooden fence called a palisade. The castle’s domestic buildings, such as kitchens, stables and workshops, were situated within the bailey.

Roger de Poitou’s aim was to secure an important crossing over the River Ribble near Preston. However, by the mid-13th century the castle was already beginning to fall into disuse, with its strategic importance possibly declining as a result of the construction of Lancaster Castle a little further north.

Today, the site on which Penwortham Castle was once situated is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. However, only the mound, which once formed the “motte” of the castle, remains, with the churchyard of St Mary’s Church occupying the position where the former castle’s bailey once stood.

Once claimed to be the largest motte and bailey castle in Lancashire, no trace now remains of this once impressive structure which it is believed occupied a site close to the town’s historic St Elphin’s Church. Little is known about the precise history of the castle, but archaeological evidence seems to suggest that it was built sometime shortly after the Norman Conquest and a document, dated 1228, refers to it as the residence of the manorial Lords of Warrington, when the then owner, William le Boteler, was granted timber for its repair.

Not long after this date, the castle is believed to have been badly damaged by fire (a frequent hazard for large timber structures of this kind) and the lords of the manor relocated to Bewsey Old Hall. The site then appears to have been left to decay and Lord Lilford, the author of a survey carried out in 1587, describes Mote Hill as “the scyte of the manor nowe decayed, and no byldings thereupon”.

The motte, or mound, was subsequently used during the English Civil War by Parliamentary forces, who used it as a raised platform from which they could fire their cannons in the direction of the Royalist garrison near St Elphin’s Church. Thereafter little reference is made to Mote Hill until two archaeological digs at the site in 1832 and 1841, which uncovered evidence of a settlement there predating the Norman castle. The site was largely demolished shortly after these excavations to make way for a school, which itself was destroyed by fire in 1923.

MON 13 – SAT 18 JUNE

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