Dom and I both met at university in Lancaster but Lancaster Castle was firmly off limits back then as it was a category C prison until 2011. Forming part of the Duchy of Lancaster estate, it’s been extensively renovated since and is now open to the general public. This site has a ridiculous amount of history over ten centuries and is a remarkable place to visit. While we were in the area for the university’s physics open day, we decided to pop along.
Some of the most exciting facts about Lancaster Castle
- The castle was first constructed in the late 10th/early 11th century and the medieval keep dates back to this time.
- The John O’Gaunt Gatehouse was built c1405 and, with its semi-octagonal towers and portcullis, is one of the finest gatehouses of its type in England.
- An extra storey was added to the medieval keep by Queen Elizabeth I in 1585 to protect Lancaster against a potential invasion by the Spanish Armada.
- The castle has been a prisoner of war camp and a police training academy.
- The Lancashire Witches were imprisoned and tried there in 1612.
- In the mid 19th century, it was one of the largest debtors’ prison outside London.
- The world’s first female-only penitentiary was built there in 1821 using the innovative Bentham Panoptican design; this ensured constant surveillance across all five floors with minimum staffing. The downside was that it sent the inmates insane!
- The A-Wing housed the male prisoners and was built in the Pentonville style and could accommodate 112 prisoners. This didn’t close until 2011.
- A-Wing saw a brief time as a nightclub but the dangerous behaviour of the revellers soon closed that down!
- The castle houses the Crown Court, one of the oldest continuously sitting Crown Courts in the country, and is still in use today.
- The Shire Hall, a ten-sided room completed in 1802, features one of the UK’s finest displays of chivalric heraldry
Told you this castle has plenty of history!
It is free to enter the Lancaster Castle complex, and plenty come in just for the coffee shop, but we paid extra to do an hour-long tour of the castle. The tour guide was brilliant and managed to fit lots of the history in with plenty of amusing anecdotes along the way. All four of us were totally engaged and entertained for the full hour and could have happily continued for another hour (or two…)!
Sadly, not all the areas were open to the public on our visit due a problem with their fire alarm (21st century problems!) but it gives us an excuse to go back and see even more of this amazing place. We definitely want to go inside the Crown Court and the Shire Hall on our next visit.
The part the girls found most intriguing was the more modern prison block which was in use until 2011. It was a seriously drafty building and the heating bills alone were enough to secure its closure.
The eeriest place was the Chapel Courtyard where all the executions were carried out at the prison between 1865 and 1887. The condemned would walk through the arched door from the Keep onto a wooden platform where the gallows would be; a beautiful small garden now sits where this used to be.
We were amazed to hear that hardly any of the condemned were murderers or rapists. Out of the 213 hangings that took place at the castle, only 43 were for murder. The rest were for burglary, highway robbery, forgery, arson and sheep and horse theft. Some of the tales we were told by the tour guide seemed rather petty to end in such a grim way.
We can’t recommend a visit to Lancaster Castle enough. It’s absolutely bursting with history, right from medieval times to within our girls’ lifetime. It’s a brilliant way to show the kids that history is a continuous timeline; such a change from the carving up of history into blocks to study.
