page_title: Mitford Castle
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Mitford Castle / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: English: Mitford Castle. Great sky just before a snow flurry.
context_page_description: Mitford Castle is an English castle dating from the end of the 11th century and located at Mitford, Northumberland. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and a Grade I listed building, enlisted on 20 October 1969. The castle is also officially on the Buildings at Risk Register. The Norman motte and bailey castle stands on a small prominence, a somewhat elliptical mound, above the River Wansbeck. The selected building site allowed for it be to natural hill scarped and ditched, producing the motte.
  Mitford Castle was the first of three seats for the main line of the Mitford family constructed on manor lands. Following the destruction of Mitford Castle, Mitford Old Manor House was used from the 16th century until the construction of Mitford Hall in 1828. Mitford Hall stands in an 85-acre park to the west of the castle ruins.
context_section_description: The castle ruins are ashlar quality squared stone construction. The inner ward was built in the early 12th century. The western section of the inner ward is on a stepped plinth and includes a large rounded archway. The eastern section of the inner ward wall has a rounded round arch to the outer ward of 19th-century reconstruction. The inner ward contains an unusual pentagonal keep that stands to the first floor and dates from the early 13th century. The keep was built on the highest point at the northern most area of the castle with each of its five sides being of a different dimension, and its internal area measuring approximately 22 sq ft (2.0 m²). The triangular outer ward to the south and east was built in the late 12th century. The divided basement contains two barrel-vaulted chambers that may have been used as cisterns.
  The chapel, built in the mid 12th century and largely destroyed in the early 19th century, is also of squared stone.  A sanctuary or chancel arch remain. A cemetery was uncovered in 1939 north of the chapel with headstones dating to the 12th century. At least one stone was moved to the Mitford churchyard with others removed or vandalised.
  Remains of a 12–13th century east curtain wall of squared stone include a gateway to a barmkin, mural chambers, garderobe, and a round arch. This east curtain wall area is flanked by a semicircular breastwork; the strongest part of the building. The west curtain wall and structures are also of the 12–13th century and squared stone, with different builds and masonry types found across three different sections.
  An inner courtyard used as a garden and orchard measured approximately 340 ft (100 m) by 340 ft (100 m).
caption: View of Mitford Castle on its somewhat elliptical mound.
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