The history of Lancaster

A Norman lord built the castle on a Roman fort

Lancaster Castle is a medieval castle in Lancaster, England, still used today as a Crown Court. It stands on a hill above the River Lune, on the site of a Roman fort built in the first century AD. A Saxon timber fort once stood on the same mound.

Historians credit Roger the Poitevin, a Norman lord granted control of the area after the Conquest, with building it. Around 1093, he raised a motte-and-bailey castle here, with a keep whose windows still echo stonework built at Caen around the same years. That same year he founded a priory nearby, dedicating its church to St. Mary.

Roger did not hold the castle long. In 1102, he joined a failed rebellion against King Henry I, and the king seized the castle for the crown. It passed to Stephen of Blois, Henry's nephew, who later became king himself. During the civil war known as the Anarchy, David I of Scotland occupied the castle for a time. It is possible he strengthened its defenses, though nobody can say for certain who built what in those unsettled years.

By 1164, the castle was back under direct royal control, this time through King Henry II. The first record of it being used as a prison comes from 1196. That use would come to define the castle far more than its walls ever did.

Scottish raiders damaged the walls twice

In 1267, Henry III granted the castle to his son Edmund Crouchback, tying it permanently to the Duchy of Lancaster. Scottish raiders under Robert Bruce attacked in 1322, and again in 1389, each time leaving the walls damaged.

In 1399, Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, became King Henry IV. From that point, the castle belonged to the Duchy rather than the crown outright, a status it still holds. Henry IV began building the castle's gatehouse, with its twin towers, finished early in the next century. It remains the building's most recognizable feature.

Catholics, witches and a Quaker founder were imprisoned here

Religion turned the castle into a place of suffering for both sides. In 1554, Protestant preacher George Marsh was held here before his trial at Chester Cathedral, part of the persecution under Mary I's Catholic government. After Elizabeth I broke with Rome in 1570, Catholic priests became guilty of treason by law, and the castle filled with them instead.

Between 1584 and 1591, at least ten Catholic priests were executed here, a group remembered as the Lancashire Martyrs. Edward Bamber and John Woodcock both died at the castle in 1646, and James Bell in 1584.

The castle's darkest-known year came in August 1612. Twelve people stood trial here for witchcraft, in what became the Pendle Witch Trials. One of the accused, Old Demdyke, died in her cell in the Well Tower before the trial even began. Ten of the others were hanged, though on Gallows Hill out on the moors, not at the castle itself.

King James I held court here in 1617, and Charles I visited in 1629. Parliament's forces attacked during the Civil War in 1643. Afterward, the Quaker founder George Fox was jailed here, held for two years from 1660 for views the government found dangerous.

Judges here sentenced more to death than any court but London

Prison reformer John Howard visited in 1776. He praised the debtors' courtyard and bowling green, but criticized the lack of a hospital and the mixing of prisoners.

In 1802, architect Thomas Harrison built the Shire Hall and Crown Court, giving the castle its judicial heart. In 1821, Joseph Gandy added a panopticon women's prison, a curved building where five tiers of cells could be watched from one central point. A year later, prisoners were set to work on a treadwheel, driving 23 looms, and later a second wheel drew water from the well.

Between 1800 and 1865, only London's Old Bailey sentenced more people to death than the judges at Lancaster Castle. Executions moved from the distant moors to a tower on Castle Parade itself, known as Hanging Corner. In that span, 213 people were hanged in public here. The last, Stephen Burke, died on 25 March 1865 for murder.

A caretaker's family died of arsenic poisoning

Hanging continued, now hidden from public view. Six men were executed in private between 1875 and 1910, the last being Thomas Rawcliffe, in a purpose-built shed.

In January and August 1911, the castle's own caretaker family suffered a strange tragedy. William Bingham, caretaker for thirty years, died in January. His relative Margaret died soon after. In August, William Bingham's son James died after eating a meal cooked by his sister Edith. Arsenic turned up in all three bodies when they were later exhumed.

During the First World War, the prison closed briefly to hold German prisoners of war. In the Second World War, the Royal Observer Corps ran an air defense control room from inside its walls.

The prison closed in 2011 after centuries of continuous use

The castle returned to ordinary prison use after 1945 and continued for decades. The prison at Lancaster Castle finally closed in 2011, ending centuries of continuous use as a jail.

Since then, the Duchy of Lancaster has opened much of the site to visitors. The former A-Wing now holds a Prison Life exhibition inside its old cells. A university runs a small city campus from a renovated building on the grounds. The Crown Court still sits in regular use, making it one of the oldest working courtrooms in the country.