Ennor Castle

Description

A small shell keep castle known as Ennor, or Old Town, Castle in the present village of Old Town on the south coast of St Mary's in the Isles of Scilly. The castle occupies a small but prominent knoll on the east side of the broad Lower Moors valley behind Old Town Bay. The walls of the keep no longer survive in their entirety above ground level. The wall survives above ground on the north west and part of the west side, where it is circa 1 metre thick, of coursed rubble. Elsewhere, the line of the wall is now marked by earthwork banks between 2 metres and 4.5 metres wide and 1 metre and 1.5 metres high along the south west and east sides, and by a wider spread of dense rubble on the south east side. The keep's walls defined a sub-rectangular internal area measuring 22 metres north east-south west by up to 17 metres north west-south east. The earliest reference to Ennor Castle is in a deed of AD 1244 and by 1306 Ranulf de Blanchminster held the castle. A royal licence to crenellate the castle was granted to Ranulf in 1315 but in 1337, the castle along with the rest of Scilly was included in the lands of the newly created Duchy of Cornwall. The fortunes of the castle were eclipsed when the fortification of Scilly was revised to serve national defence considerations in the late 16th century, when Star Castle was built. Ennor Castle became redundant and its stone was used for building purposes in the Old Town. (PastScape)

Comments

Enough remained to mount guns on as late as 1554. A castle of Scilly (Sullia) is mentioned in 1194 (Rot. Cur. Reg.), which was, most likely, here close to the church, established in about 1130-40, and near the natural harbour.