Everything about Whittington Castle totally explained
Whittington Castle is a
motte-and-bailey castle in
North Shropshire,
England, owned and managed by the
Whittington Castle Preservation Fund. The castle, as a motte-and-bailey castle, was constructed on a large, steep mound of dirt and enclosed in a courtyard by a fence or
curtain wall. As a castle of the
Welsh Marches, it was built on the border of
Wales and
England very close to the historic fort of
Old Oswestry.
The Whittington Castle is unique in that it's the only castle in the UK which is owned and managed by a community of local residents. Today, it's a popular castle for tourism for its physical attraction. Whittington castle resides on a twelve acre property in the village of
Whittington, in the district of North Shropshire, in the county of
Shropshire in
England. It abuts Castle Road.
History
Whittington lies on the English side of
Offa's Dyke, which in this area was the Norman boundary between
England and
Wales. The castle of Whittington may have begun as a
Norman manor house, although there's no evidence for this. The site was fortified as a castle for
William Peverel, in
1138, in support of
Empress Matilda, the daughter of
Henry I against
King Stephen, nephew of King Henry I, and claimant to the throne during
The Anarchy. In the late 1140s, the lordship of
Whittington, like
Oswestry and
Overton ceased to be part of England and became part of in the
Kingdom of Powys and then became Welsh
marcher lordship.
In
1165 Henry II conferred the castle on
Roger de Powis, to whom he gave funds for its repair in about
1173. Roger was followed by his son Meurig (or Maurice), he was followed by his son Werennoc. A rival claim from
Fulk III Fitzwarine (who apparently claimed it under the Peverils) wasn't recognised until 1204, leading him to rebel against
King John. However, he was pardoned for this and the castle and lordship of Whittington, though not Overton Castle at
Overton-on-Dee,
Flintshire (now in
Wrexham). The castle then descended in the
FitzWarin family, all called Fulk, until the death of Fulk XI in
1420.
The castle was captured and destroyed by
Llywelyn ab Iorwerth of
Gwynedd in 1223. It was returned under the peace treaty, and was rebuilt in stone, replacing the tower keep of a
motte and bailey with
inner bailey with buildings along a curtain wall and five towers on a raised platform surrounded by a moat, beyond which there's an outer
gatehouse or
barbican. For the next half century, the castle stood as a bastion defending Shropshire from invasion by the Welsh, until the
conquest of Wales by
Edwaed I in 1283.
After the defeat of
Llewelyn ap Gruffydd, the castle became a lordly residence for the FitzWarin family. However, after the death of Fulk VII in 1349, the castle went through a long period when the lords were almost always under age and usually absentees. Though some repairs were carried out in about
1402. The lordship was laid waste in
1404 during the rebellion of
Owen Glendower, so that the lordship was worth nothing in
1407. However, the castle wasn't captured.
It had been occipied during the minority of Fulk XI by his mother and her new husband
William Lord Clinton, during whose time there was a dispute with the people of
Oswestry who had cut down oak trees in his woods. When the FitzWarin line until it died out in 1420, the lordship passd to Fulk XI's sister Elizabeth, who married
Richard Hankeford. In 1422, the castle was captured by
escalade by William Fitzwaryn (presumably a cousin claiming the castle as heir male) and Richard Laken, but evidently soon restored to Lord Clinton. Their daughter Thomasia married William Bourghchier, thus carrying the
FitzWarin peerage into the Bourchier family. Their grandson
John Bourchier was made
Earl of Bath, but his son
John Bourchier, 2nd Earl of Bath exchanged the lordship and castle in
1545 with
Henry VIII, for some
former monastic estates nearer the main family home in
Devon.
A detailed survey of the castle was made at the time of the exchange. This describes some of the buildings as 'in decay'. The castle itself was probably never inhabited again. It passed through various hands to William Albany, a
London merchant taylor, but he and his descendants (from 1750 the Lloyd family of Aston near Oswestry, who still own the castle) lived in
Fernhill Hall. William's grandson, Francis Albany, fell into debt and sold his wood in
Babbinswood to Arthur Kynaston of
Shrewsbury, who built a
forge at Fernhill, using stone from the castle. In 1632, the Castle Gatehouse was let, the tenant being allowed to take 'freestone out of the castle'. By the time of the the
English civil war, Whittington Castle was evidently no longer defensible and there's no evdence that it played any role in that war. In 1673, the castle (or rather the gatehouse) was let as a romantic dwellling to one Thomas Lloyd, a London merchant, probably retired. About 1760, one of the towers fell into the moat. This and other parts of the castle were used to make roads, probably including the new
turnpike road to
Ellesmere in 1776, during the minority of William Lloyd.
Restoration
The castle fronts on the the old line of the
Holyhead Road and was thus noticed by visitors. William Lloyd undertook the restoration of the gatehouse in about 1808, letting it as a farmhouse. This continued to be occupied as a house until the 1990s.
Whittington Castle is currently owned on a 99-year lease from 2002 by the Whittington Castle Preservation Trust, a rural community formed in December 1998. The trust recently completed a 1.5 million
pound (3 million
U.S. dollar) renovation project.
It is also claimed that the castle formed part of the lordship of a noble Welshman called
Tudur Trefor or
Tudor Trevor in both the Maelors (that is
Maelor Saesneg and
Maelor Gymraeg. Though his father
Rhys Sais did hold the former, the rest seems to be an invention of
Lewis Dwnn in
1846.
Further Information
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