Chartley Castle Chartley Castle lies in ruins to the north of the village of Stowe - by - Chartley in Staffordshire , between Stafford and Uttoxeter ( ) . It is a Grade II * listed building History . The motte and bailey castle was built by one of the early Earls of Chester circa 1100 as a safe stop over for their journeys to places like Tutbury . It was rebuilt in 1220 by Ranulph de Blondeville , 4th Earl of Chester , who died in 1232 . It then passed by marriage to William de Ferrers , Earl of Derby . It remained in the Ferrers family for more than 200 years and in 1453 passed to Walter Devereux through his wife Elizabeth , the Ferrers heiress . Walter was created Baron Ferrers in 1461 and was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 . The castle was then abandoned as a residence and Chartley Manor , a moated and battlemented timber mansion , was built nearby . Mary , Queen of Scots was a prisoner in this manor house . It was destroyed by fire in 1781 . What is now known as Chartley Manor was in fact known as Chartley Manor Farm until the 1980s . Description . Substantial remains are still present today , including a rare cylindrical keep , a curtain wall flanked by two half - round towers , a twin - towered gatehouse and an angled tower . A survey conducted in the nineteenth century identified five towers ranging from 35 to 41 feet external diameter , and the keep , 50 feet in diameter . One author has noted similarities of the plan to Montlhery near Paris , France , which Ranulph de Blondeville may have been familiar with . M . W . Thompson has noted numerous architectural similarities between Chartley , Bolingbroke Castle , Lincolnshire , and also Beeston Castle in Cheshire , all thought to have been built under de Blondeville . Mary , Queen of Scots at the manor . When Chartley Manor belonged to Robert Devereux , 2nd Earl of Essex it became one of the last places of imprisonment of Mary , Queen of Scots . Her jailor Amias Paulet came from Tutbury Castle to view the manor in September 1585 and saw the house was just big enough to accommodate both his and the queen ' s households , " somewhat straitly . " Chartley manor was preferred over alternatives because the house had a deep moat , though the moat was quite narrow in places . The moat also helped security because the queen ' s laundry could be washed without her maids leaving the house . Paulet wrote that the way the Manor was " found to stand so low , and environed with water " was not likely to please Mary , ( she being sensitive to damp environments . ) Paulet prepared to move the queen the twelve miles from Tutbury before Christmas 1585 , and decided to avoid going through the busy market town of Uttoxeter . Mary spent almost a year at Chartley . In August 1586 Francis Walsingham made a plan to arrest Mary and move her from Chartley by having Paulet pretend to take her hunting , while the leading members of her household were arrested and her papers seized . Many of servants would be kept at Chartley and she would be taken to another house . Acting on the Babington Plot , Mary was arrested on 11 August 1586 while out riding with Bastian Pagez , her doctor Dominique Bourgoing and others , and they were surprised by armed soldiers who took them to Tixall . Walsingham wrote to Paulet from Windsor Castle on 25 August that Elizabeth ordered that Mary should not leave Tixall . However , on that day , Paulet brought Mary back to Chartley . On 25 September 1586 Mary was removed to the strong castle of Fotheringay in Northamptonshire where she was beheaded on 8 February 1587 .