Hopton Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

At the bottom of a small valley in south-west Shropshire, between Knighton and Craven Arms, Hopton Castle today amounts to a square keep of shale with sandstone quoins, standing on a low mound and surrounded by a network of earthwork enclosures and ditches that still partly hold water. This three-storey keep, with corner turrets, one of which contains a spiral staircase, is listed Grade I, while the earthworks as a whole are protected as a scheduled monument. The site is best known for one of the darkest episodes of the English Civil War. In spring 1644, a small Parliamentarian garrison of some thirty men commanded by Samuel More held out here for several weeks against around five hundred Royalists under Sir Michael Woodhouse. After the surrender, most of the defenders were put to death; only More survived and left an account of the siege. The castle was then slighted and never again served as a stronghold. Long abandoned, the ruin was bought in 2008 by the Hopton Castle Preservation Trust, which, with support from the Heritage Lottery Fund and English Heritage, carried out a consolidation campaign completed in 2011. Freely accessible, the site can now be visited as a place of remembrance where archaeology and historical narrative complement each other.