Conisbrough Castle
As early as 877 there was a Viking settlement at Conisbrough, but the first
positive mention of a large dwelling on the site is of a Saxon manor. Just
before the Norman Conquest this manor belonged to Harold Godwineson,
later Harold II. After the Conquest the manor and lands were given by William
I to William Warren, one of his foremost knights, present at the battle of
Hastings. He is named as owner in the Domesday Book in 1087, by which
time he was Earl Warren. His grandson, William the third Earl, died in 1147,
leaving his estates to his only child, a daughter, Isabel. Isabel married twice,
her second husband being Hamelin Plantagenet, the half brother of Henry II.
Hamelin was responsible for the building of the cylindrical stone keep with its
six towers, still in existence today, and the surrounding curtain wall.
Hamelin's descendants continued to hold Conisbrough until the early 1300s, when a dispute between the last Earl Warren and Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, caused the castle to fall into Earl Thomas's hands. Comsbrough was still in Lancaster's hands when he rebelled against the king, Edward II. After Lancaster's rebellion failed, and his subsequent execution, Edward II took Conisbrough into his own hands. Not until 1326 did Warren regain his castle at the hands of the new young king, Edward III. The castle remained his until 1347 when he died leaving no heir.
Edward 111 granted Conisbrough and Its lands to his fourth surviving son
Edmund, Duke of YorK. During Edmund's n-hnority his mother Phillipa of
Hainhault administered the estate. At least one of Edmund's children, his
youngest son Richard, later Earl of Cambridge, was bom at Conisbrough.
There Is some evidence that this Richard may have used the castle as his
home since his wife Anne Mortimer, gave birth To their son, another Richard,
at Conisbrough in 1410. Richard of Conisbrough, Earl of Cambridge, was
executed for treason in 1415, and his second wife, Maud Clifford, continued to
use Conisbrough until her death in 1446, when the castle passed into the
hands of her step son, Richard, now Duke of York, since the death of his
uncle at Agincourt in 1415.
Richard of York was the founder of the house of York, and after his death in
1460, at the battle of Wakefield, the castle passed to his son, Edward IV, and
became a royal castle. Despite its royal connections the castle was largely
neglected. By the reign of Henry VIII the castle was sadly dilapidated. In 1561
Elizabeth I granted Conisbrough to her cousin, Henry Carey, Lord Carey. The
Carey's held the castle until the early 1700's. But due to its dilapidated state
never lived in it. The ruined state of the castle was probably the reason
Conisbrough escaped slighting during the Civil War in the 1640's, since by
then it was in no state to be used defensively by either side. By 1737 the castle had passed into the hands of the Duke of Leeds.
Conisbrough was bought during the 1940s by Conisbrough local council, and In 1949 passed into the care of English Heritage. In recent years its keep has been sensitively restored, and one floor shows a reconstruction of a 13th century chamber. Conisbrough is open daily excepting Christmas Day.
Pauline Harrison Pogmore
