This worm eaten hold of ragged stone

Nature has given Warkworth the ideal defensive site which has been used as such by all settlers since the Stone Age. The mischievous River Coquet plays its last trick here before running into the sea; by describing a sharp bend around a rocky obstruction, it provides a tongue large enough to accommodate a village at the closed end and a castle mound at the open end.

Here was a Votadini hill fort before and during the Roman occupation. Here, also, the Bernician kings founded a settlement and a stronghold to guard it. According to legend, the illegitimate descendants of King Ida lived here. Later, Ceolwulf, King of Northumbria from 731, founded a church in the settlement then gave it and the stronghold to the monks of Lindisfarne when he abdicated in 737 to embrace a monastic life. In taking this step he probably was influenced by his great friend and mentor, Bede of Jarrow monastery, who dedicated his Ecclesiastical History to him.

King Osbert sacrilegiously revoked CeolwuIf's grant and grabbed Warkworth for his own use. His death in battle in 855 was regarded as just retribution, but it meant that no one was in command to save Warkworth from the Vikings when they sailed up the Coquet in 875. They effectively closed down historic records for the next two hundred years.

It was the custom in the eleventh century to award land recovered from the Vikings to the county earl. Thus it could have been any one of half a dozen post-Conquest earls, but most likely either Gospatric or Waltheof, who was responsible for constructing a motte and bailey castle, the new-fangled type offortification introduced by King William 1, on Warkworth's mound. Under its protection the settlement became established as a village, and its tithes were a much appreciated gift which Earl Robert de Mowbray presented to the monks of his recently founded priory at Tynemouth between 1087 and 1095.

The unexpected decision of King Stephen's, after his victory over Scottish King David 1 at the Battle of the Standard in 1138, to grant the whole of Northumberland, except his old and new castles at Bamburgh and Newcastle, to David's son, Prince Henry, to hold as an earldom, was said to have been suggested by the Pope as an appeasement to the Scots. As such it worked very well and Northumberland enjoyed a period of peace. Prince Henry worked diligently for fourteen years to improve the welfare of his 'subjects'. He insisted on living on the job and he built a suitable residence and headquarters, protected from local dissidents by a stone curtain wall on Warkworth's mound.

Prince Henry died in 1152 and William, his son, took over, but King Henry 11 cancelled the earldom and reinstated Northumberland as an English shire in 1158. Warkworth was granted to Roger fitz Richard for one knight fee, a low price which reflected the king's gratitude for past brave deeds. Although a soldier, Roger soon found that owning a Border castle was no sinecure. In 1162 William, the displaced earl and now the king of Scotland, tried to recover Northumberland by force, and in 1173 he got round to attacking Warkworth. He easily captured Roger's castle, but it proved to be a short term victory for William was taken prisoner at Alnwick the following year. built a structure of some military importance on top of the mound, but as nothing remains of it it is not known what it was. It could have been a keep, or perhaps lust a watch tower.

The lords of Warkworth dwelt here with apparent contentment throughout the thirteenth century. In 1310 the owner was John fitz Robert who at last made a concession to fashion and adopted a surname; he chose Clavering, the name of his estate in Essex. Relations with Scotland were extremely tense during his tenure and the castle's garrison was enlarged, his own troop of twelve men at arms being supplemented by four men at arms and eight light horsemen, or hobelars, provided by King Edward 11. In 1323 the king ordered John to provision the castle generously, to guard it diligently and to be ready at any time for an attack. A couple of attacks were experienced in 1327, but they were half-hearted affairs, easily quelled.

Perhaps John was rather too generous, for when he died in 1332 he was so far in debt the Crown felt it necessary to seize his Warkworth and Rothbury properties in settlement. Fortunately for his brother, Alan Clavering, Callaly was not involved, and it was fortunate, too, that John had no family to disappoint. The Crown granted Warkworth and other Northumbrian estates to Henry, the second Lord Percy of Alnwick.

Warkworth Castle became the favourite northern home of the powerful Percy family until the sixteenth century - inspite of its damning description by Shakespeare in Henry IV Part 2 as "this worm-eaten hold of ragged stone". Perhaps the Bard was not aware that the place had been improved considerably in the early fourteenth century. The gatehouse had been repaired, the curtain walls strengthened, the Grey Mare's Tail tower had been built into the east wall and the structure on top of the mound had become, either by amendment of rebuilding, a true keep, a small part of which is to seen in the present keep.

Ambitious plans were made by the first Earl of Northumberland, but his premature death on Bramham Moor in 1409 prevented him from proceeding. His only memento was the damage done by seven discharges from King Henry IV's cannon in 1405 when he was being punished for treacherous behaviour. The plans were put in hand by Hotspur's son: they included a new front to the hall house and a completely new keep, the massive structure which still dominates the scene today.

It is a complex building which, although immensely strong, also panders

to the human desire for comfort: it is more like a tower house than a keep. It is a square with about 65 feet sides, flattened corners and large bays projecting

at the centre of each wall. The first floor has an entrance lobby and is vaulted throughout; it is given over very largely to military requirements and includes

a guardroom, with a punishment pit below it on the ground floor. It is interesting to note how the many chambers and the staircase are arranged so that an enemy gaining admission would find it difficult to find his way. The

Roger died in 1177 and was succeeded by Robert fitz Roger, a child who lived in Norfolk. He moved to Warkworth when King lohn confirmed the grant on him in 1199, and, realising what he had been missing, he became very interested in Northumberland and Northern affairs. He was the county sheriff in 1203, and two upper floors are devoted almost entirely to domesticity, with a great hall, solus, chapel and large kitchens. Running from top to bottom in the centre of the building is a square shaft called the lantern which lets in light and rain water, the latter to flush the garderobe outlets.

Another item on the first earl's plan, and only partly carried out by the second earl, was to found a college for secular canons within the bailey. The idea was to use some of the existing buildings and to build a collegiate church across the width of the bailey. The foundations for the church were laid and are still evident, but the scheme was soon scrapped.

The third earl, another Henry, was killed in 1461 while fighting for the Lancastrians in the Wars of the Roses Battle of Towton. The Yorkists took over Warkworth next year and the Earl of Warwick used the castle as his headquarters while laying siege to Bamburgh, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh castles. The Percys did not get their home back until 1469, and the third earl's son was not styled Earl of Northumberland until 1471. He was murdered by his tenants when he tried to levy an unpopular tax.

His son, 'The Magnificent', brought Warkworth to its pinnacle of grandeur, although he lived mainly in the south and came north only occasionally. He added elegance and style to the hall house, built the Lion tower as a porch to this, repaired the other buildings in the bailey and made the keep more comfortable. He and his successor also repaired or rebuilt some of the curtain wall.

After this it was downhill all the way for the castle. The sixth earl gave his property to the Crown in exchange for a life annuity, and for twenty years Warkworth was used only by Border wardens. When returned to the Percys in 1557 the hall house needed reroofing, but the seventh earl had no time to repair it before he was captured and beheaded for 'Joining the Rising of the North. The castle was never again the home of earls; the eighth and ninth spent much of their lives in the Tower of London, and when they were free they were forbidden to live in the north.

In or about 1604 the 'manor house or castle called Warkworth Castle' was leased to Sir Ralph Grey of Chillingham. He never lived there and did nothing to stop the rot. A survey taken in 1608 said that all the buildings in the bailey except the keep were ruinous and the place was being used as a cattle fold, its gates left open day and night. By 1618 the keep was being used as a grain store, while during the Civil War it was commandeered on two occasions as barracks, in 1644 for the Scottish army and in 1648 for Cromwell's soldiers. The coup de grace came in 1672, administered, rather ironically, by a Percy. The widow of the eleventh earl gave her estate auditor, John Clarke, permission to use the castle as a quarry. He is said to have taken 272 cartloads of lead, timber and stones to Chirton, near North Shields, where he was building a manor-house.years later his friend, King John, granted him more land, including Corbridge and Rothbury. This made him a wealthy man and enabled him to rebuild Warkworth castle.

His first priority was to add considerably to the strength of the place.

This he did by making the north and east sides of the mound and bailey much steeper, and by digging a wide moat across the south side, which was adjacent to flat fields. The west side drops steeply to the river and needed no strengthening. Behind the moat he built a massive curtain wall with a tower at its west end - he called it the Carrickfergus tower after his Irish estate - and a gatehouse at its centre. This, with guardrooms either side and a long vaulted entry, still exists although it was heightened during Edward I's reign. Creature comfort and domestic efficiency also got attention, and Prince Henry's residence was extended and a solus added, making it an attractive hall house. In the bailey he built a chapel and other houses for his entourage, Finally, he left the castle a picturesque ruin. The fourth Duke of Northumberland did repair the keep and made its top storey habitable, but the eighth duke in 1922 placed the castle under the guardianship of the then Ministry of Works. Now it is an English Heritage property.

The main street of Warkworth village runs gently downhill from the castle to the river. Although it was the castle's moat, essential to its defence, the Coquet nevertheless had to be crossed here, if only for the convenience of the villagers. A bridge was built during the last quarter of the fourteenth century, and to ensure only people with legitimate business used it, it was provided with a small fortified tower.

A bridge tower is unique in Northumberland and rare in the country, and this one is a fine example. It is a square building on the south side of the river. It has a rounded archway through it and its upper parts are ruinous. When no longer needed for its designed purpose, it became the local gaol, a duty it performed until the nineteenth century. A modern bridge, built alongside, carries the vehicular traffic today, but the old one is still used by pedestrians.