Malton Castle (The Gatehouse Record)

Description

Site of a castle. In use by 1138 destroyed in 1216 by King John. A Jacobean mansion was built on the site but it was demolished in 1674. Only the lodge and the screen wall now survive and there are no traces of the castle. (PastScape)

St. Leonard's Church stands within a large churchyard adjoining the grounds of the Lodge which border upon the road leading to Pickering and Whitby, at the northern extremity of the town. South of the Lodge is the site of Malton Castle. Malton Castle was erected probably in the early part of the 12th century. It was granted by Henry I to Eustace son of John, that 'oneeyed, wicked traitor,' who, after having long secretly favoured King David, in 1138 marched with the Scots into Yorkshire, planning to deliver Malton into their hands. After the Scottish defeat at the battle of the Standard Malton was destroyed and its castle was besieged by the king's men in revenge for the burning of several villages by its garrison during the war. After a truce of eight days, however, the siege was abandoned. It was probably at this castle that Richard I and the King of Scotland held an interview in 1194, and Malton was visited by King John in February 1213 and afterwards by Edward II. A royal grant of the custody of the castle was made in 1317 to John de Mowbray, but 'certain ill disposed persons' occupied the castle and refused to admit him. In 1322, after the hasty flight of Edward from Byland Abbey and the defeat of the royal army, Malton fell into the hands of Robert de Brus and formed a centre for Scottish depredations on the surrounding country. Brus probably stayed at the castle, but wrecked it before his retreat northwards at the end of October. Leland spoke of the castle as a ruin, but it was besieged in the Civil War, though this time its garrison was for the king. In 1643 the member for Malton refused to attend Parliament, but in 1644 Newcastle's forces were defeated here by Sir William Constable, one of the regicides. Of the house built by Ralph Lord Eure in the 17th century only the lodge remains. This has been converted into a modern residence and added to on the east and west, and is now occupied by the Hon. G. N. Dawnay. It is a rectangular Jacobean building two stories in height built of stone, and stands about 50 yards back from, and on the east side of, the Pickering road, on the border of New Malton, the grounds being divided from the roadway by a screen wall of apparently the same date as the building, but so much weathered that all the detail is lost. The principal gateway was placed in the middle of the wall in an axial line with the lodge. It was semicircular, and stood between coupled columns mounted on bases and supporting an entablature; the mouldings and any ornament here and elsewhere have, however, fallen too far into decay to discern the order to which they originally belonged. (VCH)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1004051, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number ny1261
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 59875.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) MNY2525.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- CastleUK.net
Books
- Turner, Maurice, 2004, Yorkshire Castles: Exploring Historic Yorkshire (Otley: Westbury Publishing) p. 242
  Jackson, M.J., 2001, Castles of North Yorkshire (Carlisle) p. 40-1
  Salter, Mike, 2001, The Castles and Tower Houses of Yorkshire (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 58
  Ingham, Bernard, 2001, Bernard Ingham's Yorkshire Castles (Dalesman) p. 20
  Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge: Boydell Press) p. 301 (slight)
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 521
  Robinson, J.F., 1978, The Archaeology of Malton and Norton (Leeds: Yorkshire Archaeological Society)
  Renn, D.F., 1973 (2 edn.), Norman Castles of Britain (London: John Baker) p. 239
  Pevsner, N., 1966, Buildings of England: Yorkshire: North Riding (London) p. 236
  Hudleston, N., 1962, History of Malton and Norton
  Illingworth, J.L., 1938 (republished 1970), Yorkshire's Ruined Castles (Wakefield) p. 128-9
  Page, Wm (ed), 1914, VCH Yorkshire: North Riding Vol. 1 p. 529-30 online transcription
  Page, Wm (ed), 1913, VCH Yorkshire Vol. 3 p. 398, 401
  Harvey, Alfred, 1911, Castles and Walled Towns of England (London: Methuen and Co)
  Mackenzie, J.D., 1896, Castles of England; their story and structure (New York: Macmillan) Vol. 2 p. 234 online copy
  Whellan T, 1859, History and topography of the city of York and the North Riding of Yorkshire Vol. 210-1 online copy
  Bigland, J., 1812, Beauties of England and Wales Vol. 16 p. 263-5
Periodical Articles
- Thompson, M.W., 1986, 'Associated monasteries and castles in the Middle Ages: a tentative list' The Archaeological Journal Vol. 143 p. 315
  Brown, R. Allen, 1959, 'A List of Castles, 1154–1216' The English Historical Review Vol. 74 (Reprinted in Brown, R. Allen, 1989, Castles, conquest and charters: collected papers (Woodbridge: Boydell Press)) p. 272
  Corder, Philip and Kirk, John L., 1928 March, 'Roman Malton: a Yorkshire Fortress and its neighbourhood' Antiquity Vol. 2.1 p. 69-82
  I'Anson, W.M., 1913, 'The castles of the North Riding' Yorkshire Archaeological Journal Vol. 22 p. 362
Primary (Medieval documents or transcriptions of such documents - This section is far from complete and the secondary sources should be consulted for full references.)
- Stubbs, Wm (ed), 1868, Chronica magistri Rogeri de Houedene (Rolls Series) Vol. 1 p. 193 online copy
  Twysden, Rogar, 1652, 'Chronica Ric. de Hexham' Historiae Anglicanae Scriptores X p. 319
  Hardy, T.D. (ed), 1837, Rotuli Chartarum, 1199-1216 (Record Commission) p.185 online copy
  Hardy, T.D., 1829, 'Ininerarium Johannis Regis Angliae' Archaeologia Vol. 22 p. 151 online copy
  Maxwell Lyte, H.C. (ed), 1903, Calendar of Patent Rolls Edward II (1317-21) Vol. 3 p. 28 online copy
  Stubbs, W. (ed), 1883, Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and Edward II. Edited from Manuscripts (Rolls Series 76) Vol. 2 p. 180
  Bond, A.E. (ed), 1867, Chronica monasterii de Melsa (Rolls Series 43) Vol. 2 p. 346, 'castrum ibidem diruerunt.'
  Barnes, P.M. (ed.), 1962, The Great Roll of the Pipe for the sixteenth year of the reign of King John, Michaelmas 1214 (Pipe Roll 60) (Pipe Roll Society Publications 73)
  Stubbs, W. (ed), 1880, The Minor Works comprising the Gesta regum with its continuation, the Actus pontificum, and the Mappa mundi, by Gervase, the Monk of Canterbury (London: Longman Rolls series 73) Vol. 2 p. 440 online copy
  Rickard, John, 2002, The Castle Community. The Personnel of English and Welsh Castles, 1272-1422 (Boydell Press) (lists sources for 1272-1422) p. 487
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Camden, Wm, 1607, Britannia hypertext critical edition by Dana F. Sutton (2004)
  Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p. 543
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1907, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 1 p. 57 online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Constable, Christopher, 2003, Aspects of the archaeology of the castle in the north of England C 1066-1216 (Doctoral thesis, Durham University) Available at Durham E-Theses Online
  Creighton, O.H., 1998, Castles and Landscapes: An Archaeological Survey of Yorkshire and the East Midlands (PhD Thesis University of Leicester) p. 608 online copy

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