Tickhill Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Tickhill Castle, south of Doncaster, is a large motte-and-bailey castle of Norman origin, whose stone curtain wall encloses a courtyard of more than two acres. It was one of the major strongholds on the border between Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire. Associated with Roger de Busli and then fortified by Robert de Bellême, it was confiscated by the Crown in 1102. Successive kings equipped it with a curtain wall, a gatehouse and a polygonal keep on the motte. Having become part of the Duchy of Lancaster in the 14th century, it served as a Royalist garrison during the Civil War before being slighted. The surviving parts of the castle are the tree-covered motte, the Norman gatehouse, sections of curtain wall and the ditch. The 17th-century house built in the courtyard with stones from the keep is a private residence; the site opens to the public only on one day a year. The gardens laid out in the bailey and the spiral path up the motte reflect the landscape taste of the 18th and 19th centuries.