Here is our second fortnightly selection of Northern English Castles. Enjoy touring them online, or even better put something in your diary for a real “in the flesh” visit. The picture to the left is of Brougham Castle by the River Eamont in Cumbria, just outside Penrith. This was one of several castles in Cumbria restored by Lady Anne Clifford following the seventeenth century Civil War. We’ll feature it in a later issue.

Today’s Northern Castles Selection

Skipton Castle, West Yorkshire: This remarkably well-preserved castle now owned by a local family was first built in the 12th century and became the seat of the wealthy Cliffords from 1310. It remained in Clifford ownership until after the death in 1676 of the redoubtable Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, who had it restored following substantial demolition after a three year Civil War seige.

Muncaster Castle, Cumbria: The Pennington family have lived at Muncaster since 1208 and for many years have welcomed visitors. Set in 70 acres of gardens against the backcloth of the Cumbrian Lake District mountains Muncaster Castle is popular with visitors to the western coast of Lakeland. The narrow gauge Ravenglass Railway is only a mile or two away. Oh, and don’t miss the World Owl Centre.

Raby Castle, County Durham: This was the fortress of the Nevills (or Nevilles), possibly the most powerful family in the North when it was built in the 14th century; later extended by the Vane family who have lived here for almost four hundred years. With walled gardens, a deer park, carriage museum and much more, Raby is great for all the family.

Northern English Castles Mystery Tour

If you haven’t tried my “Castles Mystery Tour” (or even if you have) try it here by clicking: Mystery Castle. You can never tell what castle you’ll be taken to; it’s all randomised. At present there are twenty four castles listed, with more to follow.

Local Accommodation

If after choosing your castle visit you plan to stay overnight in the area check out these accommodation services:   Hotels   -   B&B accommodation

Some related pages:

• Castles of the North [1]
• Historic Houses and Castles in Cumbria
• Visit a Northern England Castle – A Mystery Tour

Do you recognise this castle? Hint: The young Richard III once lived here.

A major castle visit can give an excellent day out, or one of the smaller castles can be combined with other attractions, a scenic walk in the neighbourhood, or exploration of the local town. I trust you will you enjoy this first fortnightly selection of castles and hope it might trigger some fresh ideas for a trip out with family or friends whether you live in the North or are planning a holiday visit.

Four Castles of the North – A Fortnightly Selection [1]

Sizergh Castle, Cumbria: Back in the days of Henry II the Strickland family built the first house at Sizergh, just to the south of Kendal, and they still live there today, although the property was gifted to the National Trust in 1950. The huge defensive pele tower was probably erected somewhere around 1350 and remains a key part of the now larger structure substantially developed in Elizabethan times.

Barnard Castle, County Durham: An imposing castle dating from the 12th century, now in the care of English Heritage. From high up above the River Tees it looks down on the magnificent Tees Gorge. Barnard Castle also has an interesting old town centre to explore, with its historic market cross, and nearby is the celebrated Bowes Museum.

Lindisfarne Castle, Northumberland: Lindisfarne Castle is not so old as most others mentioned here, being originally a small Tudor fort dating from around 1570. Now in the care of the National Trust the present Arts and Crafts styled house was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens as a holiday home for a client, retaining much of the old fort. Lindisfarne Castle stands proud on Holy Island close to the ruins of Lindisfarne priory and monastery, home to the 7th/8th century English historian the Venerable Bede.

Richmond Castle, North Yorkshire: This fine and remarkably well-preserved Norman fortress on the northern fringe of the Yorkshire Dales National park has inspired painters, including J.M.W. Turner, for more than two centuries. High above the River Swale it commands outstanding views over the surrounding countryside. Enjoy the contemporary Heritage Garden, and explore the town with its Georgian architecture and cobbled market place.

Northern English Castles Mystery Tour

On the blog yesterday I launched my “Castles Mystery Tour”. Try it again now by clicking here: Mystery Castle. You never know what might come up on the next screen; it’s all randomised. Currently there are twenty four castles, with more to come.

Local Accommodation

If after choosing your castle visit you plan to stay overnight in the area check out these accommodation services:    Hotels   -   B&B accommodation

Some related pages:

• Historic Houses and Castles in Cumbria
• Visit a Northern England Castle – A Mystery Tour

Looking for ideas for a day out? The northern half of England has many splendid castles. Here I’ve put together a set of twentyfour, each of which can provide a good day or half-day out. They are spread from north Lincolnshire upwards, and from coast to coast as far as the Scottish border. Some have extensive exhibitions and grounds; others are simply in beautiful locations.

No, I’m not going to give a you a list. This will be a mystery tour. You’ll never know which one you might be taken to. Click here for your North of England Mystery Castle

Do you recognise the one below? Yes? No? Maybe? Well, I’d estimate you have about a one in thirty chance of being taken to it when you click above – but you won’t see it from the same angle.

Last weekend we paid an unscheduled visit to Barnard Castle. Our normal pattern when driving over the A66 between Cumbria and County Durham has been to fly past at 60 to 70 miles per hour on the way to or from somewhere or other. This time, however, a glance at the fuel gauge said quite unmistakably that we needed to pay a visit to Barnard Castle, at the very least to fill the diesel tank.

Bridge over the Tees at Barnard Castle

I must confess that before moving back north to live in the Eden Valley my only mental impression of Barnard Castle (the town) was of a pharmaceuticals factory. But there is far more to it than that. The centuries old town centre is well worth exploration and Barnard Castle (the castle) is full of history. It was founded by Bernard de Balliol in the 12th century. This was a time when control of the North of England shifted backwards and forwards between English and Scottish kings. Although descended from the Norman invaders of England, de Balliol appears to have given allegiance to King David of Scotland at least for a time. The castle eventually passed into the ownership of Richard III but after his death it was neglected and fell into ruins. Now the border lands are much more peaceful and the castle is in the care of English Heritage.

The Bowes Museum

The Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle

On the outskirts of the town, to the east, is the Bowes Museum. This splendid building, in the style of an elaborate French chateau, looks as though it should have been the residence of an exceptionally wealthy local family. Actually it was built specifically as a museum by John Bowes, a wealthy 19th century aristocratic (albeit illegitimate) art collector and his wife Josephine.

The building was finished only after both their deaths, and now is managed by a charitable trust, housing nationally and internationally important collections of European fine and decorative arts from the Middle Ages onwards as well as hosting many major visiting exhibitions. We ventured only as far as the gates on this visit, but we’ll be back.

Barnard Castle again

Before we left I stopped to take another photograph of the castle. From the western side one gets a better impression of the sheer scale of the ancient fortress.

This is somewhere we simply must revisit and explore more fully, and when I consider that we were little more than half an hour from home (even if over the Pennines) I ask myself why we’ve neglected it until now.

[Updated from a 2008 post]
In addition to the lakes themselves there is a wide variety of things to do in the Lake District. There are places to visit ranging from the literary connections of Dove Cottage at Grasmere (home of the poet William Wordsworth) to the practicalities (although also with artistic potential) of the pencil and mining museums in Keswick. And don’t forget the National Park visitor centre at Brockhole.

The National Trust

has several properties in the region and if, either deliberately or due to hitting a bad patch of weather, you decide on a programme of indoor visits you could well benefit from joining the Trust rather than paying separately for each location. With your National Trust membership ticket you get free access to all its properties, which can be a considerable saving if you vist several – and remember, the membership lasts for a year so you’ll have access to properties in other parts of the country. If you live in England or Wales you may even be surprised at what’s available to visit almost on your own doorstep as well as in the Lake District.

The National Trust (which, incidentally, is not a government body; this is sometimes misunderstood because of its name) owns large areas of the countryside in the Lake District National Park. Apart from areas of water it owns many hill farms which are let out to tenant farmers who take good care of the landscape to protect it for future generations. It also owns houses and gardens of historic or other special interest. Here are just some of the National Trust properties you could visit while in Cumbria:

• Acorn Bank Garden and Watermill, Temple Sowerby, nr Penrith
• The Beatrix Potter Gallery, Hawkshead
• Sizergh Castle, nr Kendal
• Wordsworth House, Cockermouth (William Wordsworth’s birthplace)

As I said in a previous post about the Mallerstang Valley it can be a wild place. Last time I was there the pictures were of gloom:

Pendragon Castle on a Gloomy July Day

This past weekend, however, I saw it in a different light.

Pendragon Castle on a Sunny October Day

Of all the castles inherited by Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, in the 17th century Pendragon Castle must have been in the wildest and most remote-feeling location of them all. The Mallerstang valley in Cumbria, between the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks, and just to the south of the North Pennines AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) seems almost detached from the rest of the world even today.

Looking up the Mallerstang valley from Pendragon Castle

It all looks “green and pleasant” here, but what it might have felt like in stormy weather three hundred years ago one can only begin to imagine. The view below illustrates better the contrast between the roughness of the fellside and the improved land of the enclosures lower down, which postdate the journeyings of Lady Anne.

Mallerstang Edge from Pendragon Castle

It must have taken all Lady Anne’s energy and determination to venture into this country via the wildness of upper Wharfedale and Wensleydale and see to the renovation of her properties here and in Brough, Appleby and Brougham, but so she did – and on at least one occasion stayed at Pendragon for some time.

Travelling up from her main residence of Skipton Castle, she would have arrived in the area from the south but a few days ago I approached it from the opposite direction, driving southwards out of Kirkby Stephen on the B6259. To Nateby and beyond the road more or less follows the young River Eden toward its source high on the fells near the watershed and the ancient boundary between Westmorland and Yorkshire.

Mallerstang valley from near Dalefoot

About half way between Kirkby Lonsdale and the point at which the Eden valley is exchanged for that of the Ure and Wensleydale, I came to a road junction. To the west went a road over Wharton Fell to Ravenstonedale and a road sign informed me that I’d come only 4 miles from Kirkby Stephen. Even though I was on four wheels, not walking, it seemed much further than that.

It is here that the remains of Pendragon Castle stand in a field on the right hand side of the road. Behind the gate is a green signboard.

Pendragon Castle sign

The landowner allows visitors to walk around the castle and inspect the ruins. The extent of the Pendragon remains can look quite different depending on the direction from which one is viewing them. I spent a pleasant hour pointing my camera from just about every angle I could think of in a 360 degree slow circular walk around it. From the field side the ruins can look quite extensive. Looking up from the River Eden down in the valley bottom behind the castle they can appear sparse but threatening.

As I finished my circumperambulation (is that a word?) I was thinking about the retinue of three hundred men and women who typically accompanied Lady Anne Clifford on her journeys. Add to them any permanent castle staff at Pendragon, and the question arises, “Where did they all sleep and eat?” The place doesn’t look big enough for that kind of number, even allowing for maybe three floors. This is not like Brough or Brougham. Maybe the less favoured among them were billeted out on the local tenants.

As I was pondering this question some of Pendragon Castle’s current occupants appeared out of one of the doorways. In the past, long before Lady Anne’s day and her restorations, the castle was destoyed many times in fighting as men of the north invaded, but today the occupiers showed no inclination to repel my invasion. They were not exactly friendly, but were very quiet and unconcerned; in fact, they simply ignored me.

Recently I uploaded a post about Brough Castle, one of several in the Eden Valley area belonging to Lady Anne Clifford in the 17th century.  Yesterday I snatched this quick shot of another of the long-ago residences of this remarkable lady, Brougham Castle, just outside Penrith and beautifully situated beside the River Eamont, the river that flows out of Ullswater at Pooley Bridge in the Lake District a few miles away and eventually merges with the Eden before flowing north and west into the Solway Firth.

The Keep, Brough Castle, Cumbria

Brough Castle is passed by thousands of motorists every day as they plough past on the A66 between Cumbria and County Durham at whatever maximum speed the traffic will allow, hurrying towards or on the way down the Pennine slopes from Stainmore. Those using the Kirkby Stephen road pass even closer to the castle’s nine hundred years of history – in fact it’s much more than that as a Roman fort was here long centuries before the Normans embarked on their fortification of England’s northern border.

How many stop to take a look at this interesting structure? I would very definitely recommend a break in your journey for a short spell of castle-browsing. Centuries ago this was one of the main residences of Lady Anne Clifford, that doughty owner and restorer of castles from Skipton in West Yorkshire almost to the Scottish border. (Castles at Brougham, Pendragon and Appleby were others of her rebuilding projects in this part of the country).

True, what is left today is merely a pale reflection of the splendour that once was there, but English Heritage have done an excellent job of bringing the ruin to life through the provision of a series of well-written and illustrated information boards. What is more the English Heritage web site contains several highly informative pages on the castle’s history and significance, as well as describing the underlying research and archaeological investigation.

Brough Castle, Eden Valley, Cumbria

Over the centuries the castle has suffered many bouts of ill-fortune including invasion, fire and sheer neglect – including being burned down during a 16th century Christmas party! In between, however, and especially in the hands of that great northern dynasty the Cliffords, it was restored, enlarged and equipped as an important noble residence.

Brough Castle, showing part of the interior remains

Visiting recently for the first time, I had expected to be in and out of the castle site in fifteen minutes to join my wife in the adjacent very pleasant tea room. But no, I found myself reading, viewing and attempting to visualise how life might have been within these walls after the renovation three hundred and fifty years ago – not to mention trying to get some good photos. It is interesting also to try to identify the different phases of building. For example, how many different window styles are there in the remaining structures?

The Tearoom, Brough Castle, Cumbria

If you’re in the Eden Valley around Brough, Kirkby Stephen or Appleby, or even just ploughing over the A66 across the Pennines, don’t miss Brough castle. The countryside is great, Brough being right on the edge of the North Pennines AONB – a designated “Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty”. The ice-cream here is really good too, and there’s a children’s play area behind the tearoom.

In September Cumbria welcomes the World Sheepdog Trials to the parkland at Lowther Castle, near Penrith, Cumbria. More than 200 dogs and their handlers from over 20 nations will compete. Many thousands of spectators are expected at this prestigious event and its associated Food & Country Festival.

A parade through Penrith is planned for Wednesday, 14th September, and the trials commence the following day. After four days of competition the grand final is scheduled for Sunday, September 18th. This beautiful location, on the eastern fringe of the Lake District, could hardly be bettered.

For further details see the World Sheepdog Trials web site.