En un regard
Le château en bref
Eccleshall Castle, to the north of the Staffordshire town of the same name, was for centuries the principal country residence of the Bishops of Coventry and Lichfield, lords of the manor from as early as 1086. Today it combines the remains of a moated, quadrangular episcopal castle with a late 17th-century house built on the site.
Around 1200, Bishop Geoffrey de Muschamp obtained from King John the right to fortify his house. Walter Langton, bishop from 1297 to 1321 and Chancellor of England, enlarged and remodelled the complex; most of the surviving medieval masonry dates from this campaign. In 1459, after the Battle of Blore Heath, Queen Margaret of Anjou is said to have taken refuge there. During the Civil War, Sir William Brereton's Parliamentary troops besieged the stronghold in 1643; Bishop Robert Wright died there during the siege, and the castle was taken and then slighted.
Around 1693–1695, Bishop William Lloyd had a two-storey stone house raised amid the ruins; it was remodelled in the late 18th century. The bishops lived there until the death of John Lonsdale in 1867. The private estate has been home to the Carter-Motley family for more than a century; its gardens occasionally open in aid of local charities. Surviving features include the dry moat, a two-arched 14th-century stone bridge and a roofless nine-sided tower.
