Newcastle under Lyme Castle
Did you know it's not just football that Newcastle-under-Lyme is famous for!!! Once upon a time, there was a real Castle, it's ruins still visible today. If your heading to watch a Newcastle Town match it's well worth stopping off to see.
Newcastle under Lyme takes its name from the medieval castle which once stood in Staffordshire.
There has been a castle since at least Norman times but potentially long before.
During the time of civil war this valley was on an important junction between East and West, North and South.
It was important for the crown to control this area for strategic defence reasons which is why the castle was built.
Newcastle is not mentioned in the 1086 Domesday Book, as it grew up around the castle, but it must have rapidly become a place of importance, because a charter was given to the town by Henry II in 1173.
The new castle was built to supersede an older fortress at Chesterton about 2 miles to the north, the ruins of which were visible up to the end of the 16th century.
The castle was most likely founded in the early 12th century. In 1149 King Stephen granted the castle and the accompanying lands to Ranulf de Gernon, Earl of Chester.
Numerous documentary references indicate that in the late 12th and early 13th centuries a considerable amount of work was being undertaken to strengthen the castle’s defences, and to construct and repair the internal buildings.
A major element of the castle’s defense was the large pool that surrounded the castle, which was created by damming the Lyme Brook and the adjacent streams.
This very same brook still trickles peacefully through the edge of the town today and through the site of the castle.
The only remains now visible are the hugely overgrown motte of the castle (a large earthen embankment) and the foundations for one side of the original gatehouse entrance which sit on a non-descript junction next to a school field.