Hartley Castle was a castle near Kirkby Stephen,

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

, England.

History

The manor was confiscated circa 1315 from Roger de Clifford and granted to Andrew de Harcla (anglicized to Andrew de Harclay or Hartley). The name Harcla is thought to be from the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

for "hard ground" and may refer to the outcrop of land that the castle is built upon in the Eden valley. The existing

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...

was fortified by de Harcla, some time prior to 1323, when he was ordered by

King Edward II Edward II (25 April 1284 – 21 September 1327), also known as Edward of Caernarfon or Caernarvon, was King of England from 1307 until he was deposed in January 1327. The fourth son of Edward I, Edward became the heir to the throne follo ...

to be

hanged, drawn and quartered To be hanged, drawn and quartered was a method of torture, torturous capital punishment used principally to execute men convicted of High treason in the United Kingdom, high treason in medieval and early modern Britain and Ireland. The convi ...

for alleged collusion with

Robert the Bruce Robert I (11 July 1274 – 7 June 1329), popularly known as Robert the Bruce (), was King of Scots from 1306 until his death in 1329. Robert led Kingdom of Scotland, Scotland during the First War of Scottish Independence against Kingdom of Eng ...

, and forfeited his

earldom Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. In modern Britain, an earl is a member of the peerage, ranking below a marquess and above a viscount. A feminine form of ''earl'' never developed; instead, ''countess'' is used. The titl ...

and lands. It was granted to Ralph de Neville who later sold it through three other hands to Thomas de Musgrave who on 4 October 1353 was granted a licence to crenellate by

King Edward III Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring royal authority after t ...

:
::''mansum manerii ... Harcla quod prope Marchiam Scociae situatur et per Scotos inimicos nostros saepius ante haec tempora combustum extitit et destructum'' Turner, T. H. and Parker, J.H., 1859, Some account of Domestic Architecture in England (Oxford) Vol3 pt2 p416 :which roughly speaking says fortification was needed because ::''Harcla is situated near the

Scottish Marches Scottish Marches was the term used for the Anglo-Scottish border during the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern era, characterised by violence and cross-border raids. The Scottish Marches era came to an end during the first decade of the 17 ...

and because our enemy the Scots have often burned and destroyed it.'' It was improved during the 17th century with the addition in 1615 of a pair of wings but was abandoned circa 1677. Thomas Machel visited the castle in 1677 and described it as

An Elizabethan building consisting of an inner quadrangle surrounded by buildings, and an outer court to the north protected by a thick and high curtain wall. The entrance to it was approached through a gateway at the head of a flight of steps from the road. Directly opposite an archway opened into the inner court; on the left, or east side, was the kitchen and buttery, with the hall beyond, entered by an external stair from the court; the south end was occupied by the chapel and withdrawing rooms; whilst on the western side there was a long gallery lighted by a large
oriel window An oriel window is a form of bay window which protrudes from the main wall of a building but does not reach to the ground. Supported by corbels, bracket (architecture), brackets, or similar cantilevers, an oriel window generally projects from an ...
facing the quadrangle

Another sketch from 1692 shows a thick, high curtain wall enclosing a square outer court, with an inner court enclosed by three and four storey buildings. The

image An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be Two-dimensional space, two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or Three-dimensional space, three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be di ...

at right shows what remained by the beginning of the 18th century. It was demolished between 1704 and 1744 for building stone which was used to repair Edenhall. The castle layout appears to have been similar to Sudeley Castle in the

Cotswolds The Cotswolds ( ) is a region of central South West England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper River Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and the Vale of Evesham. The area is defined by the bedroc ...

, with its double courtyards separated by a low dividing wall and a central small door and its oriel-windowed hall, but without Sudeley's later Southern Wing and with a curtain wall demarking the second courtyard instead.

Today

Apart from limited earthworks, all that remains now is a few metres of wall and stairs down to a vaulted cellar for the former kitchen. The site currently houses a late-18th-century farmhouse and outbuildings.

References

External links

''English Heritages entry for Hartley Castle

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20071007121923/http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/details/default.aspx?pid=2&id=73337 A photo of the remains of the castle (requires registration) Castles in Cumbria Grade II listed buildings in Cumbria Westmorland and Furness

History

Today

See also

References

External links