Reasons for Designation
A tower keep castle is a strongly fortified residence in which the keep is the
principal defensive feature. The keep may be free-standing or surrounded by a
defensive enclosure; they are normally square in shape, although other shapes
are known. Internally they have several floors providing accommodation of
various types. If the keep has an attached enclosure this will normally be
defined by a defensive wall, frequently with an external ditch. Access into
the enclosure was provided by a bridge across the ditch, allowing entry via a
gatehouse. Additional buildings, including stabling for animals and workshops,
may be found within the enclosure. Tower keep castles were built throughout
the medieval period, from immediately after the Norman Conquest to the mid-
15th century, with a peak in the middle of the 12th century. A few were
constructed on the sites of earlier earthwork castle types but most were new
creations. They provided strongly fortified residences for the king or leading
families and occur in both urban or rural situations. Tower keep castles are
widely dispersed throughout England with a major concentration on the Welsh
border. They are rare nationally with only 104 recorded examples. Considerable
diversity of form is exhibited with no two examples being exactly alike. With
other castle types, they are major medieval monument types which, belonging to
the highest levels of society, frequently acted as major administrative
centres and formed the foci for developing settlement patterns. Castles
generally provide an emotive and evocative link to the past and can provide a
valuable educational resource, both with respect to medieval warfare and
defence, and to wider aspects of medieval society. All examples retaining
significant remains of medieval date are considered to be nationally
important.
Middleham Castle is a well-documented example of a tower keep castle which
evolved into a concentric castle in the later Middle Ages. Its importance
lies in its excellent state of preservation and in its associations with
Richard III and one of the most important families of the later Middle Ages,
the Nevilles. Of particular significance is its wide range of surviving
ancillary buildings, and also the form of its Norman keep which, as a hall-
keep, is one of the rarer type of keep castles. Intact archaeological
deposits survive both inside the inner ward and outside to the south and it is
one of a very small number of keep-castles nationally to have escaped being
slighted during the Civil War.
Details
Middleham Castle is situated in the town of Middleham in Leyburn, North
Yorkshire. The monument consists of a single area containing the
impressive standing remains of the Norman keep, begun in the mid-twelfth
century, the fourteenth century curtain wall and later domestic buildings, and
the surrounding ditched enclosure.
The keep is of the rarer type of tower keep, known as a hall keep. It is
rectangular in plan, measuring 32m x 24m, with ashlar faced walls up to 3.7m
thick. Originally entered at first floor level from a flight of stairs up the
east side, it is divided longitudinally by a central wall. The floor at this
level has gone, but the eastern half contained the great hall and the western
half the lord's private chamber, or solar, and inner chamber. Below, the
basement floor contained a vaulted cellar to the east and, to the west, the
main kitchen and a smaller cellar.
Garderobes (latrines) can be seen on the main floor to south and west,
extending into turrets added in the fourteenth century when the walls of the
keep were heightened by the addition of a clerestory, a row of windows set
above the main storey to let in light. Of similar or later date is the great
window looking out of the lord's solar over Wensleydale, created by knocking
through the wall between two earlier, Norman windows. Built on to the east
side of the keep is a thirteenth century chapel which originally had three
storeys, the two lower serving as a vestry and possible priest's lodging. The
upper storey contained the chapel itself and was entered from the hall.
Adjoining the chapel building to the east is the base of a tower which
contained a gateway to a bridge over the east ditch. An abutment on the outer
bank of the east ditch shows where the bridge led to the outer ward of the
castle. This eastern outer ward is now built over and does not form part of
the scheduling. The ditch is visible on the north and east sides of the
castle, and also 40m to the south, where it appears to have been modified at
some stage to form a fishpond. The ditch is less than 10m wide and,
currently, only c.5m deep; it therefore does not seem to have formed part of a
formidable defensive system. Although the early keep must have had outer
defences, the only standing remains at Middleham are of the curtain wall round
the inner ward, which was first built in the early fourteenth century. The
earliest sections consist of a 7.3m high wall with a parapet walk, extant on
all four sides of the enclosure, and the bases of the main gatehouse and three
corner towers. The walls and all but the south-east tower were heightened in
the late fourteenth century and service rooms and lodgings were built against
the curtain from the fourteenth century onwards, first along the south and
west walls and later the north. The north-west tower, already heightened in
the late fourteenth century, was enlarged and heightened again at the time
these lodgings were constructed in order to provide garderobes for the new
north range. This range contained six separate lodgings which, like those of
the other ranges, were intended for retainers, guests and officials. Another
garderobe tower was built midway along the west curtain. In the fifteenth or
sixteenth centuries, a horse mill and large oven were added to the south
range.
The tower keep castle was begun in the mid-twelfth century by Ralph
FitzRanulph and represents a shift from the site of the earlier Norman
ringwork known as William's Hill, 300m to the south-west. Through marriage to
Ralph's daughter Mary, the castle passed to the Nevilles of Raby until passing
in 1460 to the `Kingmaker', Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. After his death
in 1471, it was forfeited to the Crown. Edward IV then gave it to his brother
Richard of Gloucester, later Richard III. Richard married Anne Neville, the
Kingmaker's daughter, and their only son, Edward, was born at Middleham and
also died there. After Richard's death, Middleham passed to Henry VII and
remained Crown property until 1604 when it was given by James I to Sir Henry
Lindley. Having passed through a number of hands since that time, it came
into State care in 1930 and is also a Grade I Listed Building.
Excluded from the scheduling are the ticket office and all English Heritage
fittings such as notices, interpretation boards, bridges and catwalks, the
flagpole, modern waIling and fencing, benches and the surfaces of paths. The
ground beneath these features is, however, included.
MAP EXTRACT
The site of the monument is shown on the attached map extract.
