Chartley Castle

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chartley Castle ruins

Chartley Castle lies to the north of the village of Stowe-by-Chartley in Staffordshire, between Stafford and Uttoxeter (grid reference SK010285).

The motte and bailey castle was built by one of the early Earls of Chester circa 1100 CE as a safe stop over for their journeys to places like Tutbury. The present Chartley castle was built on the site of one of the first wooden castles to be built in United Kingdom circa 900 CE, and was rebuilt in 1220 by Ranulph de Blondeville, 4th Earl of Chester, who died in 1232. It then passed by marriage to William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby. It remained in the Ferrers family for more than 200 years and in 1453 passed to Walter Devereux through his wife Elizabeth, the Ferrers heiress. Walter was created Baron Ferrers in 1461 and was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. The castle was then abandoned as a residence and Chartley Manor, a moated and battlemented timber mansion, was built nearby. What is now known as Chartley Manor was in fact known as Chartley Manor Farm until the 1980s

Substantial remains are still present today, including a rare cylindrical keep, a curtain wall flanked by two half-round towers, a twin-towered gatehouse and an angled tower.

Chartley was one of the last places of imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots. She spent almost a year there. After her long confinement at Tutbury Castle only a few miles to the east, "on Christmas Eve 1585 Mary was moved to Chartley Castle, then on to Fotheringay."^[1] "On the 25th of September (1586) she was removed to the strong castle of Fotheringay in Northamptonshire."^[2]where she was beheaded on 8 Feb 1587.