Tamworth Castle

Tamworth Castle stands on a mound above the point where the River Anker flows into the River Tame in the Staffordshire town of Tamworth. Built by the Normans on the site of an earlier Saxon palace, it is one of England’s best-preserved motte-and-bailey castles. The mound itself was first fortified by Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians, in the early 10th century. After Viking attacks left the town in ruins for decades, the Normans rebuilt the castle in stone during the 12th century. The Marmion family held it for nearly two hundred years, adding the great stone gate tower and residential ranges. The castle’s long history includes royal visits from Henry I to James I and a brief appearance in Walter Scott’s poem Marmion. During the English Civil War it was besieged and garrisoned by Parliamentary forces for two years. Later owners altered the interiors in the Jacobean style, leaving family heraldry on the walls. The Ferrers and Townshend families restored and adapted the building over the centuries. In 1897 the Marquess Townshend sold it to the town council to mark Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee. Visitors today walk up a winding carriageway through the grounds to the shell keep. Inside, a 12th-century gate tower leads to a 13th-century north range and a 17th-century south range linked by a 15th-century Great Hall. The herring-bone masonry at the base of the causeway survives from the earliest defences. Outside, the castle overlooks the River Anker and the town’s market place. Turner’s watercolour of 1832 shows the mill beside the river and the Lady Bridge leading towards St Editha’s Church.