Menu
 
Portfolio
 
Terms of Use
 

Tamworth Castle

Tamworth Castle is a Norman castle overlooking the mouth of the River Anker into the Tame in the town of Tamworth in Staffordshire, England. Before boundary changes in 1889, however, the castle was within the edge of Warwickshire while most of the town belonged to Staffordshire.

 

The site served as a residence of the Mercian kings in Anglo Saxon times but fell into disuse during the Viking invasions. Refortified by the Normans and later enlarged, the building is today one of the best-preserved motte-and-bailey castles in England.

 

When Tamworth became the chief residence of Offa, ruler of the expanding Mercian kingdom, he built a palace therefrom which various charters were issued sedens in palatio regali in Tamoworthige, the first dating from 781. Little trace of its former glory survived the Viking attack in 874 that left the town “for nearly forty years a mass of blackened ruins”. Then in 913 Tamworth was rebuilt by Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, who newly fortified the town with an earthen burh. This, however, did little to defend the place when it was again sacked by the Danes in 943.

 

Over the following centuries, there is no more mention of Tamworth as a royal residence, although a mint there struck coins for later Anglo-Saxon kings and eventually for the new Norman monarch, William the Conqueror. The place was then granted to William’s steward, Robert Despenser, who built a wooden castle during the 1080s in the typical Norman motte and bailey fashion. Occupying the southwestern part of the earlier burh, this was the forerunner of the present building.

 

When Robert died childlessly, the castle passed to his nieces, one of whom, Matilda, married Robert Marmion. The Marmion family, hereditary champions of the Dukes of Normandy and then of the new Kings of England, held the castle for six generations from c.1100 to 1294. It was during their occupancy that the castle began to be remodeled in stone, although on one occasion it was also in danger of being demolished altogether. Robert Marmion, 3rd Baron Marmion of Tamworth, deserted King John in 1215 during the turmoil of his reign. As a consequence, the king ordered Robert’s son Geoffrey to be imprisoned, all of Robert’s lands to be confiscated and Tamworth Castle to be demolished. But the fabric had only been partially destroyed by the time of John’s death the following year when Robert’s sons were able to regain their father’s lands.

 

 

 

 

More posts..

Snettisham Hoard

The Snettisham Hoard or Snettisham Treasure is a series of discoveries of Iron Age precious metal, found in the Snettisham area of the English county of Norfolk between 1948 and 1973.   The hoard consists of the metal, jet, and over 150 gold/silver/copper alloy torc

Read More
West Stow

Prehistoric settlement: The site at West Stow has shown evidence of human habitation throughout British prehistory. Indeed, the wider Lark Valley contains the greatest known concentration of prehistoric settlements in the region of East Anglia. Mesolithic: Excavation at West Stow has discovered evidence for hunter-gatherers

Read More
Thor’s Cave

  Excavations in 1864–65 and 1927–35 found human and animal remains, stone tools, pottery, amber beads, and bronze items within Thor’s Cave and the adjacent Thor’s Fissure Cavern. The caves are estimated to have contained the burial sites of at least seven people. The finds

Read More
Tower of London

Victorious at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, the invading Duke of Normandy, William the Conqueror, spent the rest of the year securing his holdings by fortifying key positions. He founded several castles along the way, but took a circuitous route toward London;

Read More
Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin
Share on pinterest
error: