Scarborough Castle Scarborough Castle is a former medieval Royal fortress situated on a rocky promontory overlooking the North Sea and Scarborough , North Yorkshire , England . The site of the castle , encompassing the Iron Age settlement , Roman signal station , an Anglo - Scandinavian settlement and chapel , the 12th century enclosure castle and 18th century battery , is a scheduled monument of national importance . Fortifications for a wooden castle were built in the 1130s , but the present stone castle dates from the 1150s . Over the centuries , several other structures were added , with medieval monarchs investing heavily in what was then an important fortress that guarded the Yorkshire coastline , Scarborough ' s port trade , and the north of England from Scottish or continental invasion . It was fortified and defended during various civil war s , siege s and conflicts , as kings fought with rival barons , faced rebellion and clashed with republican forces , though peace with Scotland and the conclusion of civil and continental wars in the 17th century led to its decline in importance . Once occupied by garrisons and governors who often menaced the town , the castle has been a ruin since the sieges of the English Civil War , but attracts many visitors to climb the battlement s , take in the views and enjoy the accompanying interactive exhibition and special events run by English Heritage . History . Early history of the site . Archaeological excavations in the 1920s produced evidence which suggests a hill fort was built on the headland where the castle now stands . Finds were dated to between 900 – 500 BC , part of the late Bronze Age / early Iron Age . Among finds dating back about 3 , 000 years , a Bronze Age sword , thought to have been a ritual offering , is on display in the castle exhibition . A 4th - century Roman signal station , one of several on the Yorkshire coast , was built on the headland at the cliff top . The station was to warn of approaching hostile vessels , and took advantage of a natural source of fresh water which became known as the " Well of Our Lady " . The remains of the signal tower were excavated in the 1920s revealing it to be square in plan around a small courtyard . It measured about 33 metres across and was built of wood on stone foundations with a gatehouse and an outer ditch . The Anglo - Saxons built a chapel on the station site around the year 1000 , the remains of which are still visible . This is reputed to have been destroyed during the invasion of Harald Hardrada in 1066 . A much later Icelandic poem claims that a Viking settlement around the harbour was burnt down in 1066 by Hardrada ' s forces , who built a large bonfire on the headland to supply burning brands to hurl at the villagers below . However , there is no archaeological evidence of such an event , nor any of the Viking presence . The first evidence of the harbour settlement coincides with the establishment of the stone castle around 1157 – 1164 . This grew from a small settlement around a wooden fortress which the stone castle replaced . Development and decline . William le Gros , Count of Aumale , a powerful Anglo - Norman baron and grand - nephew of William the Conqueror , built a wooden fortification after his receipt of the Earldom of York , from King Stephen in 1138 , granted as reward for his victory at the Battle of the Standard . Aumale may have re - founded the town of " Scardeburg " , though there is little evidence of this . As with other castles , there would have been at least a small settlement nearby . Some information on the establishment of the castle has survived in the chronicle of William of Newburgh , a monk who in the 1190s wrote about the its foundation . The castle had a gate tower , curtain wall , dry moat and chapel . This motte and bailey castle subsequently disappeared , with only the small , raised mound of the motte visible in the inner bailey today . The fate of the original fortifications is unclear . Henry II ordered that all royal castles be returned to the Crown . He had a policy of destroying adulterine castle s , built without royal permission , during Stephen ' s chaotic reign . Initially , Aumale resisted the call to hand over Scarborough , which he had built on a royal manor , until Henry ' s forces arrived at York . The wooden castle vanished – William of Newburgh , writing near the time , claimed that the structure had decayed through age and the elements , battered beyond repair on the windswept headland . Later interpretations view this as implausible and argue that Henry wanted to stamp his mark on Scarborough , by demolishing William ' s fort and creating a much stronger stone complex . From about 1157 , Henry II rebuilt the castle using stone . Much of the building work occurred between 1159 and 1169 , when the three - storey keep was built and a stone wall replaced the wooden palisade protecting the inner bailey . By the end of Henry ' s reign in 1189 , a total of £682 , 15 shillings and threepence had been spent on the castle , of which £532 was spent between 1157 and 1164 . Henry ' s average annual income during his reign was about £10 , 000 . The castle became a strategic northern stronghold for The Crown . Henry II granted the town that had grown up beneath the fortress , the title of Royal Borough . While Richard I ( reigned 1189 – 1199 ) had spent nothing on the castle , his brother King John ( reigned 1199 – 1216 ) ensured that it was a comfortable residence for himself and his retinue . John ' s rule was strongly opposed by the northern barons , so the castle at Scarborough was fortified as a strategic stronghold . John visited the castle four times during his reign , and spent a considerable sum on the castle . He built the curtain wall on the west and south sides during 1202 – 1212 , and a new hall called the " King ' s Chambers " , later Mosdale Hall . In total , John spent £2 , 291 , three shillings and fourpence on the castle . This included £780 that was earmarked for repairing the roof of the keep in 1211 – 1212 ; John spent more on the castle than any other monarch . The Pipe Rolls , records of royal expenditure , show that John spent over £17 , 000 on 95 castles during his reign spread , and Scarborough received the most investment . Improvements continued under Henry III ( reigned 1216 – 1272 ) . By this time , Scarborough was a thriving port , and though he never visited the castle , Henry spent a considerable sum on its upkeep . Around 1240 – 1250 , he installed a new barbican consisting of two towers flanking the gateway , with another two towers protecting the approach . These were completed in 1343 , although have been much - modified since . At this time , the castle was a powerful base which an unscrupulous governor could abuse : Geoffrey de Neville , who was governor for 20 years in the 13th century , used the garrison to seize port goods . Since governors were not required to reside in the castle , they often pocketed funds rather than used them for repairs . By the mid - to - late 13th century , the defences were decaying , floorboards rotted , roof tiles were missing and armouries bare of weaponry . Corruption continued among the castle ' s custodians , who acted with impunity as the castle was outside the jurisdiction of the borough . In the 1270s , governor William de Percy blocked the main road into Scarborough and imposed illegal tolls . Despite its decline , in 1265 the castle was committed to Prince Edward , later Edward I ( reigned 1272 – 1307 ) , who held court there in 1275 and 1280 . In 1295 , hostages from his campaigns to subjugate Wales were held at the castle . Piers Gaveston besieged , 1312 . Henry de Percy , who occupied the castle from 1308 , had a bakehouse , brewhouse and kitchens built in the inner bailey . and the castle was once again made into a major fortification . Edward II ( reigned 1307 – 1327 ) imprisoned some of his Scottish enemies there in 1311 . In 1312 he gave Isabella de Vesci the castles of Bamburgh and Scarborough . The castle was considered to be the natural place for the king ' s favourite knight , the Gascon Piers Gaveston , to seek sanctuary when pursued by the barons who had imposed the Ordinances of 1311 . The Ordinances were imposed to curb the King ' s power , and the barons saw Gaveston as a threat to their interests . Sir Robert Felton was governor of Scarborough Castle in 1311 and was slain at Stirling in 1314 . In April 1312 , Edward made Gaveston the governor of Scarborough Castle , but his tenure would be brief . In May , the Earls of Pembroke and Warenne , together with Henry de Percy , besieged and took the castle . Despite its strong defences , it fell quickly due to lack of provisions . Gaveston was promised safe escort from the castle , but on the journey south was captured by the Earl of Warwick and killed . Scarborough fared little better ; Edward punished the town for not supporting Gaveston by revoking its royal privileges and placing it under the direct rule of appointed governors . Further assaults and decay , 1318 – 1635 . At the time of the Hundred Years War ( 1337 – 1453 ) , Scarborough was an important port for the wool trade , so was attacked several times by enemy forces . With rumours of a French invasion , a 1393 inquiry into the state of the castle led to repairs being carried out in 1396 and 1400 . Henry VI ( reigned 1422 – 1461 ; 1470 – 1471 ) ordered major repairs between 1424 and 1429 . Richard III ( reigned 1483 – 1485 ) was the last monarch to enter its grounds . He resided at the castle in 1484 while forming a fleet to fight the Tudor s , a struggle he lost along with his life the following year . After assaults by forces from France and Scotland in the early 16th century , in 1536 Robert Aske unsuccessfully tried to take the castle during the Pilgrimage of Grace , a revolt against the Dissolution of the Monasteries and Henry VIII ' s ( reigned 1509 – 1547 ) break with the Roman Catholic Church . Repairs were made in 1537 , and in 1538 some of the lead of the towers was used by the keeper , Sir Ralph Eure ( Evers ) , to make a brewing vessel ; Eure reported that some of the walls had fallen down . In 1557 , forces loyal to Thomas Wyatt the younger , who opposed Mary I ( reigned 1553 – 1558 ) and Catholicism , took the castle by entering disguised as peasants . Their leader , Thomas Stafford , held the castle for three days , and was subsequently executed for high treason on Tower Hill . Civil War sieges , 1642 – 1648 . In September 1642 , at the outbreak of the English Civil War ( 1642 – 1651 ) , Sir Hugh Cholmley occupied the castle as a Parliamentarian loyal to Oliver Cromwell but swapped sides in March 1643 . The castle was refortified on Cholmley ' s orders , including the establishment of the South Steel Battery for artillery . After Cholmeley ' s defection , the castle , with its garrison of 700 Royalist soldiers , the town and its strategic supply port were on the side of Charles I . ( reigned 1625 – 1649 ) The Parliamentarians saw Scarborough as a valuable Royalist target because it was the only port not under their dominion . On 18 February 1645 , Sir John Meldrum took the town from the Royalists , cutting off any escape routes by land or sea and delivering the port for Parliament . The same day , Cholmley retreated into the castle and refused to give in , so the Parliamentarians prepared for what would be a five - month siege – one of the most bloody of the Civil War , with almost continuous fighting . The Parliamentary forces set up what was then the largest cannon in the country , the " Cannon Royal " , in the 12th - century St . Mary ' s Church below the castle , and proceeded to fire cannonballs that pounded the castle ' s defences . In turn , the church was extensively damaged over the three days of fighting . The bombardment partially destroyed the castle keep , but the outer walls were not breached . The Parliamentary forces were unable to take the castle and there followed a period of particularly bloody hand - to - hand fighting around the barbican gateway in which Sir John Meldrum was killed . By July the tide was turning in the Parliamentarians ' favour : bombardment , scurvy , lack of water , perhaps a shortage of gunpowder and the threat of starvation and only 25 men fit to fight meant that the castle surrendered on 25 July 1645 . Only about half of the original 500 defenders emerged alive . Subsequently the castle was repaired and rearmed for Parliament with a company of 160 . Matthew Boynton , the castle ' s new governor , declared for the king on 27 July 1648 when the soldiers went unpaid . This led to a second siege which brought the castle back under Parliamentary control on 19 December , when the garrison was defeated as much by the oncoming winter as by the Parliamentary forces . The castle changed hands seven times between 1642 and 1648 . The castle was later used as a prison for those who were deemed to be enemies of the Commonwealth of England , the country ' s brief period of republicanism ; the shell of the keep survives , minus the west wall , which was destroyed in the bombardment . The castle was returned to the Crown following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 . From 1660 . The castle was used as a prison from the 1650s , and the garrison increased in 1658 , and in 1662 it returned to the Crown . George Fox ( 1624 – 1691 ) , founder of the Religious Society of Friends was imprisoned there from April 1665 to September 1666 for religious activities viewed as troublesome for Charles II ( reigned 1660 – 1685 ) . The castle declined again : James II ( reigned 1685 – 1688 ) did not garrison it , he gambled that its defences would be sufficient to resist any Dutch invasion , but the town was seized for William of Orange during the Glorious Revolution that ousted James . The Jacobite Rebellion of 1745 , a series of uprising aimed at restoring the Catholic House of Stuart to the throne , saw the castle refortified with gun batteries and barracks for 120 officers and men by 1746 . The keep was used as a powder magazine , storing gunpowder , and the South Steel Battery was rebuilt . A barracks , containing twelve apartments accommodated 120 soldiers . Three batteries were built to protect the town and harbour . Two faced south and the other was on the north side of the castle yard . In 1748 , the Master Gunner ' s house was constructed and served as accommodation until the early 20th century and today hosts the exhibition on the castle . The castle saw no action during this time . Later still , the threat of French invasion during the Napoleonic Wars led to the permanent establishment of a garrison , which remained until the mid - 19th century ; French prisoners were held at the castle during 1796 . During the First World War , Scarborough was used for British propaganda purposes after the bombardment of the town by two warships of the German Empire , SMS " Derfflinger " and SMS " Von der Tan " n , on 16 December 1914 . The raid killed 19 people and damaged the castle ' s keep , barracks and curtain walls . The castle was severely damaged by the hail of 500 shells directed at it and the town . The barracks were demolished due to the extensive damage wrought by the bombardment . In the Second World War , the castle served as a secret listening post . Features . The castle ' s location takes advantage of a naturally defensive site on a headland with steep cliffs , high , on three seaward sides . The promontory is joined to the mainland by an isthmus , where a ditch or moat was cut , and a wall or palisade with a gatehouse built on the southwest landward side . The stone curtain wall dates from the late 12th and early 13th centuries when it was strengthened by the addition of twelve round towers at intervals on its length . The wall does not surround the inner buildings of the castle . The entrance consists of a barbican , or fortifications to protect the gateway , completed in the 14th century and flanked by two half - circular towers on high ground . Modifications to the barbican have removed evidence of a portcullis and its grooves . The barbican stands in the place of a 12th - century fortification built close to the remains of an 11th - century Anglo - Saxon chapel . Beyond the main gateway , a stone bridge , built between 1337 – 1338 , to replace two drawbridge s , leads to the baileys or courtyard s . It leads to the inner bailey , which was used for workshops , offices , a kitchen , and a storage area . Usually a castle ' s inner bailey is accessed through the outer bailey , however the opposite is the case at Scarborough . The 12th - century keep and the castle ' s well lie within the inner bailey . The keep , with its entrance on the first floor , survives as a shell , with the west wall , interior floors and roof missing , as a result of bombardment in the 17th - century . With its sloping plinth to aid defence , flat roof and four turret s , this square four - storey building was over . The walls range from in thickness , the west wall being strongest , and there are several windows , some blocked up along its length . The corners have decorative rounded mouldings . There are the remains of a hearth in the west wall on the first floor , which comprised a single Great Hall , where the occupants ate and often slept . The second and third floors were each divided into two rooms for important visitors or the governor , and the basement was a storage area . Late 20th century resistivity surveys of the inner bailey have traced the outlines of more 12th - century buildings . The baileys are separated by a stone wall , ditch and bank , with two defended gateways . The larger outer bailey would have seen entertaining events staged , vegetables grown , and animals kept ; there was a graveyard and St . Mary ' s Chapel , which has completely disappeared , though the remains of the old Anglo - Saxon chapel on the site of an old Roman signal station can still be seen . A 12th - century medieval building , in length , stood in the outer bailey to accommodate royal visitors . It consisted of a long hall and private chamber with a fireplace used by the monarch , and rooms for preparing and storing food . The building was demolished sometime before a survey of 1538 , which makes no mention of it : only the foundations , excavated in 1888 , remain . In the outer bailey , a building named the " King ' s Chambers " or Mosdale Hall , after a 14th - century governor responsible for upgrading it , is an example of how the castle has been altered over the years . Originally built in the 13th century and upgraded by Mosdale after 1397 , the two - storey building adjoining the curtain wall was converted to red - brick barracks in the 18th century . After being badly damaged by German shelling in 1914 , the building was demolished . The red brickwork is clearly visible next to the much earlier outer stone wall , as viewed from Scarborough ' s South Bay . The 13th - century Queen ' s Tower , in the wall nearby , also had different uses : initially luxurious accommodation with private latrine s , a porch and large windows with bay views were added in 1320 . Two of these windows were later blocked up and one was changed to a cupboard with a rubbish chute . The Master Gunner ' s House , built in 1748 , served as accommodation until the early 20th century . Development as a tourist attraction . During the second half of the 19th century the castle became a tourist attraction . The foundations of a medieval hall were excavated in 1888 , and an 1890 photograph shows visitors using the grounds to practice archery . By 1920 , the site was taken into public ownership by the Ministry of Works . The demolition of the 18th - century barracks exposed the medieval foundations of Mosdale Hall , which can still be seen . The castle site , a scheduled ancient monument managed by English Heritage since 1984 , is host to various events , usually in summertime , such as pirate and Robin Hood - themed activities . The castle grounds are reputed to be haunted – by three ghosts , among them a Roman soldier . The 18th - century Master Gunner ' s House , now a museum has an exhibition whose centrepiece is a Bronze Age sword discovered in 1980 . English Heritage invested £250 , 000 in making the site a tourist attraction . A visitor centre provides admission to all extant remains , and has an exhibition of artefacts from the site and viewing platforms .