Whorlton Castle is a ruined medieval castle situated near the abandoned village of Whorlton in North Yorkshire.
There is a lovely church just down the road and there are great views of the Cleveland hills and on a clear day you can see Roseberry Topping and Captain Cooks Monument from the Entrance to the Gatehouse.
It was established in the early 12th century as a Norman Motte and Bailey Castle, associated with the nearby settlement.
The castle is an unusual example of a motte-and-bailey that remained in use throughout the Middle Ages and into the early modern period.
Built to overlook an important road on the western edge of the North York Moors, the castle fell into ruin as early as the mid-14th century.
The site nonetheless continued to be inhabited until at least the early 17th century.
Little now remains of the castle itself, other than the remnants of some cellars or undercrofts.
The ruined shell of a 14th-century gatehouse still survives, albeit in fairly poor condition.
It is a listed building and is privately owned but can be visited by the public.
History Of Whorlton Castle.
The castle was established in the early 12th century at the edge of Castle Bank, a ridge between the villages of Faceby and Swainby, overlooking a small valley through which the road between Thirsk and Stokesley runs.
In the 13th century, it was referred to variously as Hwernelton or Potto Castle, at the time of the Domesday Book, Whorlton was recorded as belonging to Robert, Count of Mortain, the half-brother of William the Conqueror, it subsequently passed to the de Meynell family, who founded the castle.
It is unclear when exactly the castle was built, but in its first phase, it would have consisted of a wooden fortress on a roughly square motte measuring some 200 ft by 160 ft
The motte was surrounded by a dry ditch up to 66 ft wide by 16 ft deep, with an outer bank standing up to 8 ft high.
Most of the ditch is still present, but its southeast quadrant has been obliterated by a modern road.
It would have adjoined a fortified enclosure that included the village and church.
The castle fell into disrepair or was dismantled during the first part of the 14th century; an account of 1343 describes it as being a ruin.
In the mid-14th century, it passed by marriage to John Darcy, Lord Darcy of Knayth, who had close associations with the royal court.
Darcy carried out substantial changes to the castle and levelled the motte to provide a base for a new keep with a fortified gatehouse.
Whorlton Castle remained in the hands of the Darcys until 1418, when the death of Philip Darcy, 6th Baron Darcy de Knayth, resulted in Whorlton being inherited by his daughter, Elizabeth Darcy, who was married to Sir James Strangeways.
The Strangeways held on to the castle, until a dispute between heirs in 1541 led to it becoming a possession of the Crown.
King Henry VIII of England later granted the castle and estate to Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, whose eldest son was Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley. Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, wrote to Mary, Queen of Scots, in the autumn of 1561, possibly from Whorlton Castle, to propose a marriage between Mary and her son Darnley.
At some point in the late 16th or early 17th century, a house was built by the Lennox family adjoining the northwest end of the gatehouse. The house was sketched in 1725 by Samuel Buck and is depicted as a large two-storied building with gabled dormer windows set into a steeply pitched roof. No trace of the house's structure now remains, though its roofline is still visible on the north side of the gatehouse
The castle eventually returned to the possession of the Crown, but fell into disrepair, and by 1600 the building was described as "old and ruinous".
Whorlton Castle and manor were then given to Edward Bruce, 1st Lord Kinloss (later Lord Bruce of Kinloss), in 1603, and the title of Lord Bruce of Whorlton was bestowed on his second son, Thomas Bruce, 1st Earl of Elgin, in 1641. Thomas's son, Robert Bruce, became the first Earl of Ailesbury in 1664.
By the early 19th century, the ruins of the castle's keep had largely disappeared, The Bruce family retained the castle and manor until the late 19th century, when they were sold to James Emerson of Easby Hall.
In 1875, a large quantity of the castle's stonework was removed to build Swainby's village church.
The castle is currently privately owned, having been bought by Osbert Peake, 1st Viscount Ingleby, in the mid-20th century as part of a shooting estate.
It acquired listed status in 1928, and is a Grade I listed site. The gatehouse received structural repairs from the Ministry of Works in the 1960s, but has otherwise largely been left open to the elements.
To Claim this Cache
Please Take a Picture of yourself or your GPS/Phone in front of the castle and answer the following question:-
How many "X" shaped metal wall ties are there on the back wall of the gatehouse
Please Post the Photograph in your log, but please don't post the answer to the question, send me the answer via the Geocaching Message Centre.
You do not have to wait for a reply before logging the cache, however any logs without a photograph will be removed.
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