Edlingham Castle ~ May 2022

Posted in Adventures, architecture, castles & ruins, Fuji, FujiX-T2, History, landscape, photography, UncategorizedTagged , , , , , , ,

After our inspection of St. John the Baptist church, we walked down the path to see the ruins of Edlingham Castle.

The History Bit ☕️ 🍪

This one has been a bit of a nightmare, as researching Sir William Felton has lead to some confusing possible discrepancies, but I’ll do my best to sift through to the salient points.

Although a manor house of the 13th century is probably concealed beneath the later building, the earliest standing remains are those of the hall house, built in 1300 by Sir William Felton at a time when Northumberland was relatively peaceful.

William’s family had estates in Norfolk and Shropshire and was an important family, but William made his fortune independently through military service, royal favour and marriage to a Northumberland heiress, Constance de Pontrop. In about 1340–50 his son, also named William, of course, improved domestic comfort by building a magnificent solar tower, the best preserved part of the castle.  The Pesky Scots were still at war with the Irksome English in this era, so Will 2 also strengthened the defences with a gate tower and stone curtain wall. Towards the end of the 14th century William’s grandson, Sir John, completed the enclosure walls and enlarged the gatehouse.

Later owners of the estate included the Hastings and Swinburne families. Sir Edmund Hastings married Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir John Felton, and in In 1514, George Swinburne, constable of Prudhoe, purchased Edlingham Castle from the Hastings family. Upon ownership by the wealthy Swinburne family, the purpose of the castle slowly changed from defense to comfort. Interestingly, ground floor rooms of the hall were converted to lodging for farm animals. Swinburne kin owned the castle until the 18th century at which time both solar tower and vaulting of the lower room began deteriorating. Further ruin and theft of stonework continued into the 20th century. In 1978, English Heritage began excavations of the castle, and a few years later in 1985, secured portions of masonry for safety purposes, as well as prevention of further structure collapse.

Some pictures then..

Two views of the castle from the road towards it.

Edlingham Castle

This railway viaduct is located under half a mile north-east of Edlingham in Northumberland, and close to Edlingham Castle. It was built in c.1885 for the North Eastern Railway Company, as part of the former Alnwick to Coldstream (Cornhill) railway, which opened in 1887. Passenger services on the line were discontinued in 1930, although it was briefly in use during the Second World War, to serve RAF Milfield. The line continued to be used for freight, until finally closing in 1965. The track across the viaduct has been removed and the viaduct is now a Grade II site listed on the National Heritage List for England.

Edlingham Castle and viaduct.

Inside the castle

One of the octogonal corners of the hall house.

Finally here’s a nice little drone take on the castle that I found on youtube, you can really see the shap of things from above.

That’s all this week, but stay tooned for a flowerfest next time when we visit Birkheads Secret Gardens.

📷 😊

all photos embiggenable with a click.

full album HERE

refs:-
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/edlingham-castle/history/
https://great-castles.com/edlingham.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_William_Felton
http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/felton-sir-john-1339-1396

37 thoughts on “Edlingham Castle ~ May 2022”

  1. Drone footage is one thing about the Internet that really makes me happy.

    How much land around the ruins does English Heritage own? It looks like it’s sitting out in the middle of somebody’s farm.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  3. ‘Sir William Fenton has lead to some confusing possible discrepancies, but I’ll do my best to sift through to the salient points.
    Although a manor house of the 13th century is probably concealed beneath the later building, the earliest standing remains are those of the hall house, built in 1300 by Sir William Felton’

    Is the discrepancy that he spells his name differently every time? No wonder it’s hard to pin him down. or are they different people?

    Can I speak negatively of drones? Not near cattle or animals, please. Very frightening for livestock.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I spelt it wrong once, not ‘every time’, but thanks, corrected now.
      You can speak however you like of drones, I don’t have one. However you can see from the long shot at the start there isn’t any cattle or animals anywhere in the vicinity, and also this is someone’s footage from 2 years ago, so no animals were harmed in the making the drone film or the posting of it.

      Like

      Reply

  9. I missed that castle when I was up there. I just looked up Felton’s Norfolk connections. He was ‘Lord of Litcham.’ Litcham is only 6 miles from Beetley, and I have passed through it many times. He was also connected to Dersingham, which is 24 miles west of here, and close to Hunstanton. I have been through Dersingham too. I will have to write a book about it, I think.
    “In The Footsteps Of Felton” is my working title. 🙂
    Best wishes, Pete.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  12. All those dissolves in the drone footage made me slightly queasy, but it was good to see it. I wonder what it looked like from the outside when it was new(ish). It must have been quite small as castles go.

    Liked by 1 person

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  18. Pingback: 2022 retrospective thingy. – fraggle

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