Qualla: Berkhamsted Castle

Berkhamsted Castle: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit MichaelMaggs, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Archbishop of York surrendered to William the Conqueror at Berkhamsted in 1066. The Saxon Witan had finally given up trying to organise resistance after Hastings, and at this small Hertfordshire settlement in the Chiltern Hills, the bishops met William and accepted him as king. While William paused before riding south to be crowned in London, he probably ordered the construction of a castle here, on a key route into the Midlands. Almost a thousand years later, the earthworks of that Norman castle still survive - eleven acres of motte and bailey, twin moats, a fourteen-metre mound. The Royal London-Birmingham Railway runs straight past the outer walls, just feet from medieval stones. In 1833 the castle became the first building in Britain to receive statutory protection from Parliament, specifically to stop the railway company from demolishing it.

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Image: MichaelMaggs | CC BY-SA 3.0

Berkhamsted Castle: Built by the Conqueror's Half-Brother

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Reynolds, CC BY-SA 2.0. Robert of Mortain - William the Conqueror's half-brother - was probably the man responsible for managing the construction. Once it was built, he became the owner. The castle was a classic Norman motte-and-bailey: a high circular mound (the motte) topped by a wooden keep, attached...

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Image: Chris Reynolds | CC BY-SA 2.0

Berkhamsted Castle: Thomas Becket Rebuilds in Stone

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dormskirk, CC BY-SA 3.0. Robert of Mortain's son William rebelled against Henry I and lost the castle to confiscation. Henry granted Berkhamsted to his chancellor Ranulf in the early 1100s. Ranulf had a short tenure: in 1123, riding with Henry to the castle, he became overly exhilarated at the view from ...

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Image: Dormskirk | CC BY-SA 3.0

Berkhamsted Castle: The 1216 Siege

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stephen McKay, CC BY-SA 2.0. In December 1216 the future Louis VIII of France besieged the castle with siege engines - probably trebuchets - and attacked it for twenty days, throwing what chroniclers called innumerable damnable stones at the defenders. The siege was part of the First Barons' War, in which re...

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Image: Stephen McKay | CC BY-SA 2.0

Berkhamsted Castle: Richard, Cornwall, and the Black Prince

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No Swan So Fine, CC BY-SA 4.0. Henry III gave the castle to his brother Richard, Earl of Cornwall, in 1227. Berkhamsted was Richard's favourite home, partly because it was conveniently close to London. He built an impressive three-storey tower onto the property in 1254 and restored much of the rest. Berkhamste...

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Image: No Swan So Fine | CC BY-SA 4.0

Berkhamsted Castle: The First Protected Monument

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Simon Burchell, CC BY-SA 4.0. By the late 1400s the castle was unfashionable. By the mid-1500s it was in ruins. Stone was carted away to build Berkhamsted Place, the local school, and other buildings in the town. Then in the 1830s the engineers of the London and Birmingham Railway designed a route that would ...

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Image: Simon Burchell | CC BY-SA 4.0