[AJR]

A print recently added to my collection, from Grose's Antiquities, 1784.

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[Gordon]

From Dodds, Bastions & Beligerants;

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Prudhoe Castle
L88 P548 NZ091634  10 km, 6 1/4  miles, east of Corbridge

Inspite of its twentieth century industrial surroundings, Prudhoe Castle is arguably the best, most revealing, Norman keep and bailey castle in Northumberland. The only thing which is alien to the archetypal layout is a house built between the inner and outer baileys. English Heritage, its guardian now, not only welcomes visitors but also invites schools to send whole classes for live history lessons, spending a day enacting a typical medieval existence.

Robert de Umfraville, son of 'Robert with the Beard', the first Lord of Redesdale Liberty, was awarded the barony of Prudhoe by King Henry I in 1133 or '34. He and his son built a motte and bailey on a ridge - mainly natural but with a slave-dug ditch part way round - which overlooks the Tyne. Recent excavations have revealed the probable positions of timber buildings and an enclosing palisade, and have indicated that the latter was replaced by a mud and stone bulwark. The Umfravilles probably moved to Prudhoe from Elsdon as soon as suitable accommodation was completed, for life there must have been more pleasant and safer than in Redesdale.

Odinel's son, Odinel 11, spent much time between 1150 and his death in 1181 replacing the motte and bailey, section by section, with a stone keep and bailey castle. The curtain wall with the nucleus of the existing gatehouse was the first part to be completed, with the keep following either just before or just after 1173; the precise date does not matter as the curtain wall proved enough to restrain the Scots in that year, and again in 1174.

These raids were of a personal nature. During the 1140s, while Northumberland was a Scottish earldom, Ordinel 11 had been brought up at the Earl's court at Warkworth, where he shared this privilege with the future king of Scotland, William the Lion. The two boys were about the same age and became great friends, so later, after he had been crowned, William expected Odinel's support when he tried to regain Northumberland for his country. He had not counted on Odinel's loyalty to his king, which proved to be stronger than childhood ties. This so annoyed William that when Newcastle's defences frustrated him in 1173 he marched up the Tyne and besieged Odinel's castle at Prudhoe. Further frustration.

Next year, 1174, William went straight to Prudhoe, hoping to catch the castle unprepared. Once more the attack was unsuccessful, but in a show of pique William's army did manage to destroy the corn in neighbouring fields and to strip the bark off apple trees in the castle's orchard. Odinel had not been in his castle while this was going on; he was staying in Newcastle, keeping a close watch on events, and when William was homeward bound he force-marched a small army to Alnwick where it surprised the Scots and captured their king. William was kept a prisoner for a year, then was released after paying homage to King Henry II and promising never again to invade England.

The position and obvious strength of Prudhoe Castle lent it considerable influence in the control of the mid-Tyne valley. It was a psychological deterrent as well as a physical one, and few direct attacks upon it are recorded - and none that was successful.

The free-standing keep in the inner bailey was not large in area - only 41 by 44 feet - but it was tall and awesome. Two semicircular towers dominated the western corners of the wall. A grand hall was added to the bake house, brew house, soldiers' quarters and stables in the outer bailey: as at Warkworth, it would appear that the lord required more comfort than a keep could provide. The gatehouse was the piece de resistance, however, and still is. Odinel's twelfth century building was single storeyed with a vaulted passage and Norman arch resting on two corbels carved as heads. During the thirteenth century another floor was added to carry a chapel, the lancet windows of which were corbelled out to make what is regarded as the earliest English oriel window. A guardroom on a second floor was added in the fourteenth century, as was an extra long barbican.

During the 1320s the constable of the castle was ordered to build a 'Peel Yard' beyond the outer bailey, presumably for the protection of villagers. This would have been a palisaded enclosure and there is no evidence of it now.

Odinel II's grandson, Gilbert, married Maud, Countess of Angus, in 1243, and their son, Gilbert II, who inherited the following year, assumed the title Earl of Angus. He also married well, taking Elizabeth, daughter of Alexander Comyn, Earl of Buchan, as his bride in the 1270s. They had no children so succession went to uncle Robert, who had four sons. One of these, Gilbert III, eventually inherited the titles and estates, and another, lngrim, served as a commander in King Edward II's army at Bannockburn in 1314. A story is told about him which illustrates the healthy disrespect the professional soldiers held for their king's fighting capabilities. just before battle commenced, Ingrim and the king saw Robert Bruce's men at prayer. "See, yon men kneel for mercy", said Edward, to which Ingrim replied, "You say truth; they ask for mercy, but not from you". Perhaps a little prayer on the English side would have helped; the king had to flee and Ingrim was killed.

Gilbert III produced no heirs although he married twice. His second wife was Maud de Lucy who had inherited Langley barony in 1367. The Earl of Angus thus had control of a large slice of Northumberland - Redesdale, Prudhoe and now Langley - as well as much property in Scotland. When he died, in 1381, Redesdale liberty was settled on a close relative, Thomas de Umfraville, but Prudhoe and Langley stayed with widow Maud until she died, in 1398, when they went to her second husband, Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland. Other members of the family objected to this, and it was not until 1441 that the transfer was legalized.

Gilbert's death meant the end of the mainline Umfravilles, and Thomas's branch at Elsdon and Harbottle lasted only to 1436. Other cadet branches kept the name going, however - in ever reducing circumstances - to 1833 when Captain John Brand Umfraville RN, the son of a workhouse keeper, died childless.

The Percys neglected Prudhoe Castle, and from the end of the fourteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth centuries about the only work done was the building of a house between the inner and outer baileys in c1413 while King Henry IV's son, the Duke of Bedford, had a temporary hold on the barony. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the castle was leased quite often to people prepared to put up with a crumbling abode for the sake of a prestigious address. Thomas Bates was one until he got mixed up in the Rising of the Northern Earls in 1569. Lady Heron was another, and Reynold Heron was a third. His annual rental was £66.62, a sum he was loath to pay; he was evicted in 1627, having paid no rent for seven years.

Good times returned when Hugh Percy became the second Duke of Northumberland in 1786. He did a thorough overhaul of the castle, and in 1808 he built a mansion in Georgian architectural style to replace the fifteenth century house so that he could provide suitable lodgings for a relative. The mansion continued to be a home until 1966; now English Heritage have mounted a small exhibition in it.

[AJR]

A print of the castle in 1811.

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[AJR]

Two prints of the castle in 1813.

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[AJR]

Postcard of Prudhoe Castle recently added to my collection.

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[AJR]

A copy of Grose's Antiquities engraving, with colours inverted.

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[AJR]

An old print of Prudhoe Castle recently added to my collection.

This one is from the London Illustrated News, 4th September 1852.

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