ROBSRADIO

Tamworth Castle is a typical Norman motte and bailey castle. Its sandstone walls and superb herringbone wall are thought to date from the 1180's. They replaced a wooden tower on the present artificial mound (motte) with an enclosure (lower bailey) which would have been constructed shortly after the Norman Conquest. The stone Castle is a polygonal Shell-Keep with a square tower set into its walls. The lower bailey would have been bordered by a timber palisade with a ditch outside. The footpath over the Herringbone Wall, all that survives of the "Curtain Wall" of the bailey, leads up to the Castle Keep and down to the excavations of the late 13th century Gatehouse. Only the lower portion of the double tower of the gatehouse remains; the moat was dry, and the drawbridge raised and lowered over a stone causeway.
Numerous additions and alterations have been made to the Castle by succeeding generations of owners. The oldest surviving section within the Shell-Keep, apart from the Tower itself, is the north wing with its 13th century arched doorway. The Banqueting Hall added in the early 15th century, and the Warder's Lodge at the entrance to the Courtyard (upper bailey) is Tudor. With the construction of the South Wing in the early 17th century, the 12th century Keep now housed an "H" plan country gentlemen's residence. The Castle was much neglected in the 18th century, but between 1783 and 1811 extensive alterations were made which included the removal of the bay windows, tall chimneys and characteristic gable-roofed attic storey and the re-facing of the exterior of the entire South Wing.
There has been some confusion in the past over the identity of the castle' s first Lord. There is evidence that before the reign of King Stephen ( 1135 - 1154 ), it was held by both Robert de Despencer and Robert Marmion. Robert de Despencer evidently left no surviving legitimate son when he died, either a daughter or a niece married into the Marmion family. But as the name Despencer means Steward, (a feudal official), it is now believed that, they may have been one and the same person. Marmion had performed the office of Champion to William the Conqueror in Normandy and the gift of Tamworth Castle and the Manor of Scrivelsby in Lincolnshire required him to render service as Royal Champion to the King of England. He was to come "to the Coronation of the Lord King, completely armed with royal arms of the livery of the Lord King, and sitting upon the principal royal war-horse, and oppose himself against any person who should gainsay the Royal Champion".

The Marmions held the Castle until 1291 when Philip, the last and eighth Baron died. When Lady Jane Marmion died without an heir, the Castle was granted by Edward I to her niece's husband, Sir Alexander de Freville. He was the last holder of the Castle to perform the office of Royal Champion; he appeared in this role at the Coronation of Edward III in 1327. The youngest daughter of the last of the Marmions had been granted her father's estate at Scrivelsby, and her successors claimed successfully that the office of Royal Champion was attached to that Manor and not to Tamworth Castle.

Print of Tamworth Castle,
Mills and Ladybridge - c.1785
In 1423 the male line of Freville failed and the Castle passed to Sir Thomas Ferrers of Groby, who had married into the Freville family. From the Ferrers, the Castle passed by marriage to the Shirleys of Chartley in 1688; again by marriage to the Comptons, Earls of Northampton in 1715, and finally to the Townshends of Raynham in 1751. The Castle remained in the Townshend family until 1897 apart from a brief period in the early 19th century when it came into the possession of a London auctioneer, Mr. John Robins. In 1897 the Castle was purchased by Tamworth Corporation for the sum for £3000, and was formally opened to the public on the 22nd May 1899.
The Castle was twice threatened with destruction. In 1215, just before the signing of the Magna Carta, King John sent an armed force to raze it to the ground in revenge for Sir Robert Marmion, the fifth Baron, having sided with the Barons against him. During the Civil War the Castle was held by the Royalists in 1642, and was a source of trouble to the Parliamentary Army in their endeavour to secure Lichfield. The Castle was captured by the Cromwellian forces in 1643 after a siege lasting two days and a Captain Waldyve Willington was placed in command. Cromwell ordered the Castle’s destruction, but, as in King John’s time, the threat was not carried out, this could explain the change in the stone work, half way up the Shell Wall.

Tamworth & North Warwickshire Times - March 11 1999

GHOSTS may be figments of some people's imagination but staff at Tamworth Castle claim the 800-year old building is riddled with visitors from the other side - and they have tales to prove it! Legend has it that the castle is haunted - claims that have escalated as staff and public visitors alike experienced strange feelings and seemingly inexplicable events. But none more bizarre than those over the past months.

It appears the resident ghosts aren't too happy with new furniture - that's if you believe a story by Ann Williams who worked there for nine years helping run the gift shop.

Ann, who lives in Wilnecote, says a day doesn't go by when she does not experience something she can't explain. Thoughts of ghosts don't normally frighten Ann but she admitted to being scared witless by the latest spooky chapter.

"It was a typical dark winter's night. The rain was lashing down and it was extremely windy which probably explained why the Castle alarm system went off," she said. "As a key holder, I was called out at around 11 p.m. after the police had been alerted. Once they'd inspected the Castle and found no signs of an intruder, they left me alone to wait for an engineer to reset the alarm."

"As I sat in the reception area I heard the odd footstep here and there. Nothing new. In fact I even smiled to myself and thought they (the ghosts) were on the move. But the sounds got louder and the noises became more apparent. As clear as day, I could hear a lot of footsteps, as if there was a crowd in the room above me, as well as the dragging sound of tables and chairs being moved on the wooden floors."

"I wasn't immediately bothered by it all until suddenly this aura came all over me and I instantly felt an overwhelming presence. Though most of us here at the Castle feel some kind of unexplained presence almost on a daily basis, this was far different to anything before. or the first time ever I felt as though I wasn't supposed to be in the building. Don't ask me why, but I felt it, so I dashed outside and ran straight into the engineer."

"It was his first visit to Tamworth Castle and he'd got lost which explained why I'd had to wait for more than an hour and a half. But what he told me sent a further shiver down my spine. Though he was expecting to be met by someone, he was shocked to see me. Puzzled, I asked why, and he said while walking up the Castle path only moments before he'd seen someone looking out of a window. He said he simply waved and the `person' stepped back into the darkness. But it wasn't me, that's for sure. I'd waited on the ground floor and anyway, by the time he saw the image, I was running outside. When I asked him to point to the window in question, he indicated the Ferrers Room, which is the one where all the noises had come from."

"That is now our curator's office which has just been fitted with a new circular meeting table and chairs. They're not in keeping with the antiques at the Castle and I suppose the ghosts don't like them - though when I investigated they'd not been moved an inch."

As her tale circulated among castle staff, a further spine-chilling story came to light. June Hall, another long standing member of staff who is fearless of ghosts, recalled opening up one morning with a colleague, Val Lee, and walked into the room which houses the Tamworth Story exhibition. "I was struck in the face and momentarily blinded. It felt like sand had been thrown at me. When Val came in behind me, I was bent over trying to clear my eyes and shaking my top. Then Val and me saw a blue mist swirl around the room and out of the window:"

Two ghosts have long been blamed for haunting the landmark. One is the Black Lady and the other is the White Lady.

The first is said to be the ghost of St Editha who one night appeared to Lord Robert Marmion and ordered him to restore the Nuns who had been expelled from the Castle and Polesworth Abbey by one of his ancestors. The White Lady is said to roam the battlements weeping for her murdered lover who met his end on the Lady Meadows below the Castle.

Has anyone else had a ghostly experience at the Castle?
Send your story to the Times Newsroom, 37, Aldergate,
Tamworth, B79 7DD.

In November 1949 the Birmingham magazine “HOME NEWS” printed a report of a ghost hunt at Tamworth Castle, here we have reproduced the Editors introduction to the full story: -

FROM THE DESK by the Editor - Mr. T. J. Driscoll

SPOOKS are back in the picture again this month. Very literally. For on this page you will see a picture taken on the haunted stairway of Tamworth Castle. This is a picture, which is bound to cause a lot of controversy. It was taken under certain conditions laid down by Mr. J. W. Horwood, one of the partners in the firm of B. W. Investigations, 15, Edgbaston Road, Moseley. Mr. Horwood has spent over twenty years investigating what he calls "phoney ghost stories," and when he heard about the ghost hunting activities of Home News he issued a challenge of £100 if this magazine could produce for him evidence that would convince him that ghosts do exist.

It was rather an unusual challenge, but Home News accepted it, and it was agreed that Mr. Horwood and his colleague, Mr. A. J. Bennett, would accompany, our contributor John Boland, a photographer and myself on all ghost-hunting expeditions organised by this magazine.

Our first trip together was to the centuries old ballroom of Wootton Hall, Wootton Wawen. Mr. Horwood and Mr. Bennett took all precautions they felt necessary. We spent several hours in the ballroom but the vigil was in vain.

Some days later, permission was obtained from Miss M. J. Bygott, Tamworth librarian and curator of the castle museum, to spend a night at the castle in the hope of catching the elusive ghost of a nun who is said to walk the haunted stairway after midnight.

I was sitting near the foot of the stairs shortly after midnight had struck. I could hear the other members of the party breathing softly in the darkness. There was a doorway behind me leading to a large room hung with pictures. Several times I glanced round into the inky room half expecting to see something. When any member of the party moved I could hear the rustle of their clothing.

In the silence there came a rustling noise from the room above, a vague remote noise that was at the same time clearly defined. A member of the party close behind me moved his position a fraction. Someone swallowed hard. The air was distinctly colder. Then clearly came the sound of padding footsteps on the stairs. They came down - I could feel them getting nearer. I counted three distinct sounds like sandaled feet padding on the bare wood of the stairs. My own impression was that the presence on the stairs, whatever it was, came rushing down although the rate of the footsteps were quite normal.

No Explanation
I drew back instinctively; I felt the other members of the party follow the same action. Our torches flashed a fraction after the photographer's bulb. The stairs were empty; the icy air seemed to be eddying away. We made an examination again of the upper rooms. All seals were intact. I can offer no explanation for the occurrence.

Let us imagine being Tamworthians of the thirteenth century, having a walk round the town on a day in 1290 when the Marmion era was coming to an end, that being also the time from which we can learn of some of the activities of the burgesses from the Tamworth Court Rolls.
Standing on the Bridge of St. Mary, a structure narrower and inferior to others which replaced it, we look up at the stone Norman Keep erected by the Marmion's a little over one hundred years ago, replacing the wooden Keep erected some one hundred years before that. We may wonder whether Sir Philip Marmion, the last of the male line, is seated in his castle or whether he is in residence at one of his other possessions at Scrivelsby or Middleton. He is now seventy-one years of age and has occupied the castle for fifty years. He is nearing the end of a very active life, and has long been a well-known figure both in the Midlands and at the royal court. "He became a Person of no small account in the World," says Dugdale, "a Person in whose Fidelitie the King reposed much Confidence." He has been Sheriff of Warwickshire and Leicestershire and a loyal supporter of the King in the struggles with the barons in the time of Simon de Montfort. For Tamworth then witnessed strife between two rival factions: the men of Henry de Hastings, lord of the Staffordshire part of the town and one of the leaders of the baronial party, and the followers of Sir Philip; men who fought at Evesham twenty-five years ago when the barons were overcome and de Montfort was slain. For this and his assistance at Kenilworth, where Hastings had held out with some of the defeated rebels, Sir Philip was rewarded by the King in being granted the two manors of Tamworth – the forfeited estates of the Hastings in Wigginton and the Staffordshire part of the town, and the Warwickshire part which had been held by the King himself. For a long time, however, the burgesses of Tamworth have had reason to hate and despise Sir Philip, for fifteen years ago they had to take action against him for attempting to deprive them of some of their privileges, including the right to elect their own bailiffs because he asserted that such a right belonged to the lord of the manor, which of course it did in some cases, but not in Tamworth, where the burgesses acquired their privileges a long time ago.

Below the castle, at the meeting of the waters of the Tame and the Anker, stand the Castle Mills. "The men of Tamworth," says a Patent Roll of 1275, "claimed that when the manor was in the hands of former kings they elected their own bailiffs every year and were not distrained to do suit to the mills of the manor of Tamworth, and that Philip Marmion did not permit them to continue those customs."
Not far away, on the Tame at Bitterscote, stand other mills, used. by the burgesses for the grinding of their corn in defiance of Sir Philip. These are known as the Lady Mills, belonging to Sir Ralph Basset (1), whose manor of Drayton extends as far as the borough boundary at St. Mary's Bridge.
From the other side of the bridge, looking to the western horizon, can be seen the Hay of Hopewas, a place where the King hunts when he stays at the Castle. On such occasions Sir Ralph Basset and Richard de Wytakere are responsible for finding coals and litter for a carpet for the King's chamber for one night, this being a service attached to their joint holding of four messuages in Tamworth.
we proceed from the bridge up the slight hill leading to the town, alongside the dry moat at the foot of the steep mound on which the Keep of the Castle stands. Fields and gardens occupy the rising ground on the left, extending to the king's ditch which joins the Tame at Wyburne lane. Turning to the right, we enter a street which affords us a view of the domestic quarters of the castle, on the other side of the moat, at the foot of a causeway giving access to the Castle Keep. So we come to the market place, with the entrance to the castle on the south side. Here on a Saturday we may see the weekly market, full of activity with the stalls of the burgesses and the goods of itinerant traders from distant towns; the bailiffs and their officers may be seen carrying out their duties in supervising the market and collecting stallages and tolls, making sure that all traders pay their dues. Sometimes we may see an unfortunate offender occupying the pillory which stands in the market place: market day provides produce which may be spared to throw at the victim, unless the worthy burgesses of Tamworth refrain from observing what is a general custom. Here in the market place our fellow-townsmen need no reminder that the last of the Marmions lives nearby, for they can remember how, some years previously, he attempted to extend his castle grounds by encroaching on the highway to the detriment of the market to an extent of forty feet in length and eight feet in width – an action which annoyed the burgesses so much that two of them took the law into their own hands, breaking the gates of the castle and carrying away goods worth one hundred pounds. So says a Coram Rege Roll of thirteen years ago, recording that Marmion sued the King's men of his manor of Tamworth and Wyginton because they would not render the services due to him, and also sued the men who committed the damage. The burgesses also remember that five years since, Marmion claimed that he held the Castle as belonging to his barony and not as a gift from the King, a claim he could not substantiate.
From the market place we enter Bullstake street. On the right, gardens which stretch to the River Anker are intersected by a short lane known as Agatewater-leader, and here, on the bank of the river, butchers and others sometimes commit offences by washing the entrails or animals. Opposite the entrance to this lane is another lane, leading to the College of Deans.
At the end of the street we come to the Bullstake, and here we may sometimes witness a bull being baited by dogs according to custom. Those who slaughter bulls "against the assize" are prosecuted; several persons have offended in this way recently. From there we enter Bollebrugge street, and soon we come to the king's ditch which crosses the street to continue to the River Anker. Beyond the ditch, at the boundary of the borough is Bollebrugge, a narrow structure like the Bridge of St. Mary. From the bridge we can see an extensive common pasture; if we come in the mornings or evenings we may see the town shepherd leading animals belonging to the burgesses who live in the Warwickshire part of the town, for the land on which their houses stand give them rights of pasture on this common land. (2)
Returning to the Bullstake, we enter a short street on rising ground, known as Cross Street. Here at the junction with Gumpigate and Butcher Street stands the Stone Cross. Nearby is the Butchery and the Swine-market, and in the vicinity is an ale-house occupied by a woman called Isabel. Three times this year "Isabel at the Cross" has appeared in court, having been presented by the official tasters for giving short measure.
We enter Gumpigate, where the county boundary divides the borough, one side being in Staffordshire and the other in Warwickshire. On the left stands the Deanery, and on the right, crofts and gardens extend to the king's ditch, as they do in Cross Street and Bollebrugge Street. On the other side of the ditch is the manor of Pericroft, stretching for a long distance from the River Anker to beyond the northern boundary of the borough. A gate, called Pericroft-gate, leads from the gardens to the land beyond the ditch. (3)
At the end of Gumpigate we come to the northern gate of the town. Here again we see the king's ditch; crossing it, we proceed along a narrow lane, later called Upper Gungate, on rising ground. The county and the borough boundaries merge here; six hundred years will elapse before the land on the Warwickshire side of the lane is added to the borough, being first within the manor of Pericroft and then within the parish of Bolehall.
At the top of the lane, near the borough boundary, we see the town gallows where convicted thieves end their lives. A little beyond, on the road leading to Ashby-de-la-Zouch, we can see a building which has been erected recently by Sir Philip Marmion for the use of a master and four brethren of the Premonstratensian Order, monks who come from a town called Premonstaton in Picardy, and who are popularly known as White Canons from the colour of their cassocks or habits.
We return to the centre of the town along Saltereslone, an ancient Saxon highway so named because it was used in the transport of salt from Droitwich to Lincolnshire. It takes us into Ellergate, a lane which joins Gumpigate, but going in the opposite direction we arrive at the Carrefour, a word used by the Norman's to signify a place where several roads meet. At the Carrefour we turn into Lichfield Street and soon we come to the King's ditch again and to the western gate. Beyond the ditch lies Outwall street, a name which suggests that Tamworth, like many of the Anglo-Saxon boroughs, was once a walled town, although traces of a wall on top of the king's ditch are no longer discernible. Outwall street leads us to Bradeford, so called from the Broad Ford on the Tame, and to another common pasture which lies just outside the borough boundary and on which the burgesses who live in the Staffordshire part of the town have rights of common attaching to their houses, as do their fellow-burgesses in the Warwickshire part in the common previously mentioned.
Retracing our steps to the Carrefour, we re-enter Ellergate and then turn into Cat Lane, sometimes called Priest Lane and Parsons Lane. Being the main approach to the church, the jurors of the court leet endeavor to keep the lane in a presentable condition and unobstructed by nuisances and traffic, for the burgesses are in the habit of depositing rubbish and leaving vehicles here.
As we enter the church, we may remind ourselves that a religious edifice has stood upon the site for five or six centuries, probably from the time of St. Chad, Bishop of Mercia, who established. his see at Lichfield, seven miles away. Sir Philip Marmion holds the patronage of the present church, which his ancestors built or enlarged after the Conquest. It is a large building (4), planned in the form of a cross, with a central tower over the crossing. The daily mass now in progress cannot be well understood by the majority of those who are present, for it is being rendered in Latin, and in any case most of the people cannot read.
Leaving the church, a gate in the churchyard enables us to return to our starting point by proceeding along High Street, the main street of the town, later called Church Street, and Ladybridge street.

Based on the book "Medieval Tamworth" by Henry Wood

(1) The manor of Drayton, which was one of the possessions of Leoffric, Earl of Mercia, before the Conquest, came into the ownership of the Basset family by the marriage of Geva, daughter of the Earl of Chester, to Richard, son of Ralph Basset, Justice of England. The Drayton line of the family ended in 1403.
(2) In a legal action in 1585, when the lord of the manor of Bolehall attempted to deprive the burgesses of their ancient rights, it was stated that such rights of pasture were for every burgage two cows and a horse, and for each cottage one cow and a horse.
(3) In 1368 Sir John de Clynton, then owner of Pericroft Manor, was summoned for closing the gate. "It ought to be open for all the tenants," says the court roll.
(4) In "Tamworth Tower and Town," H. C. Mitchell, who by the nature of his calling was well qualified to judge, says that the church as rebuilt or enlarged by the Norman's must have been a magnificent building, in length equal at least to the present church as shown by Norman masonry at both the extreme east and west ends.

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