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Scarborough Castle - Scarborough, North Yorkshire (EH)

Like many castle sites on prominent viewpoints, Scarborough Castle is only the latest and most visible of a succession of occupations. The headland is surrounded by cliffs of up to 300 feet, and is a natural defensive position. Settlements have been here since the late Bronze and early Iron ages, and a Roman Beacon or Signal Station was built around 370 AD. On top of the remains of the Roman building are the remains of a small chapel, dating from around 1000 AD, which seems to have been connected with the Saxon monastery on the headland. The monastery was probably destroyed by Harold Hardrada when his Norsemen occupied the site in 1066. The present barrel vault dates from twelfth century rebuilding, and the doorway is sixteenth century. There is a brick water tank which was build during the eighteenth century by the army.

Scarborough Castle

The first castle on the site was built by William le Gros around 1140. He also built a chapel and the excavated remains show that it was highly decorated. The chapel became a secular house after the Reformation, although little of the sixteenth century alterations remain. There was an extensive Curtain Wall around the headland, parts of which survive from the late thirteenth century, but many alterations and repairs occurred. Mosdale Hall was a large residential suite of buildings built by King John, then rebuilt by the late fourteenth century governor of the castle, John Mosdale. After the Jacobite Rebellion in 1745, the hall was rebuilt in red brick and housed 120 officers and men of the army. This survived until 1914, when Scarborough was shelled by German battle cruisers. Further into the Outer Bailey are the exposed remains of the medieval Hall, dating originally from the late twelfth century.

The Inner Bailey houses the great Keep, built by Henry II between 1158 and 1168. Henry had seized Scarborough from William le Gros for resisting the Crown's power and the Keep he built here was the earliest for which he was entirely responsible and the most powerful in the area. After completion, the Keep stood 100 feet high, with a tower at each corner. Down the centre of each wall is a broad supporting buttress, the whole height of the Keep. The corners are strengthened by buttresses as well, with three-quarter round mouldings finishing them off. At the base of the tower are sloping plinths which made it stable and difficult to undermine. It would also deflect heavy objects thrown down from the battlements onto the oncoming attackers.

Scarborough was besieged for the first time in 1312 while under the governorship of Piers Gaveston, Edward II's lover. The powerful barons were upset by Piers' arrogance and though he defended the castle against many assaults, he ran out of provisions and was forced to surrender. The barons promised him safe passage back to London for trail, but he was seized on the way by his bitter enemy the Earl of Warwick and was summarily beheaded. In 1318 a Scottish raid reached as far south as Scarborough, and the repairs and up-keep continued to be expensive. In 1393 it was estimated that �2000 needed to be spent.

Both France and Scotland attacked Scarborough during Henry VIII's reign, and there was a serious rebellion in the north in 1536. In 1557, Sir Thomas Stafford took the castle and proclaimed himself Protector of the Realm in opposition to Mary Tudor's unpopular marriage to Philip II of Spain, but he surrendered when the support he had counted on did not materialise, and was executed at the Tower of London. Royal ownership ended in 1624 when James I sold Scarborough to the Earl of Holderness, although it came back to the Crown in 1662. 

During the Civil War, the Keep was badly damaged by Parliamentary cannon during two sieges, in 1645 and 1648 and the entire western wall collapsed. The surviving walls average 85 feet in height and much of the stonework has been refaced, with some windows restored. The windows on the first and second floors would have reflected their importance as the residence of the lord, with double lights surrounded by carved stonework. The entrance was on the first floor and was protected by a strong stone Forebuilding, standing 40 feet high. That so much damage was inflicted is due to the batteries of cannon set up to pound the Barbican, built around 1350 when Edward III finished the orders of Henry III for ''a new tower before the castle gate''. The then largest gun in the country, the Cannon Royal, was set up in St Mary's church below the castle, and it sent 60lb balls through the east window of the chancel.

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