Rougemont Castle Rougemont Castle , also known as Exeter Castle , is the historic castle of the city of Exeter , Devon , England . It was built into the northern corner of the Roman city walls starting in or shortly after the year 1068 , following Exeter ' s rebellion against William the Conqueror . In 1136 it was besieged for three months by King Stephen . An outer bailey , of which little now remains , was added later in the 12th century . The castle is mentioned in Shakespeare ' s play " Richard III " in a reference to that king ' s visit to Exeter in 1483 . Devon ' s county court was located here from at least 1607 , and the four Devon Witches — the last people in England to be executed for witchcraft — were tried here in the 1680s . All the buildings inside the walls were swept away in the 1770s to make way for a new courthouse , which was extended by the addition of wings in 1895 and 1905 . Because of its function as a court , the interior of the castle was not open to the public until the court moved to a new site in 2004 . The entire site has since been sold to a developer whose stated aim is to transform it into " the Covent Garden of the South West " . The castle is named after the red stone found in the hill , and used in the construction of the original buildings , of which the large early Norman gatehouse is the main remaining feature . It is surrounded on three sides by the Rougemont Gardens and Northernhay Gardens , public parks now maintained by Exeter City Council . Construction and early history . After the Norman conquest of 1066 , Gytha , mother of the defeated King Harold , was living in Exeter and this may have caused the city to become a centre of resistance to William the Conqueror . Another reason for discontent may have been William ' s insistence that the city ' s traditional annual tribute of £18 must be increased . After Exeter ' s citizens rejected William ' s demand that they should swear an oath of fealty to him , he marched to the city in 1068 and laid siege to it for 18 days before it capitulated . The citizens of Exeter had been able to withstand William ' s siege thanks to the city wall , which had been first built by the Romans and extensively repaired in around 928 by King Athelstan . Although the siege ended with the surrender of the city , William ordered a castle to be built within the wall to safeguard his position . The place selected was at the highest point , inside the northern angle of the wall , on a volcanic outcrop . The building of the castle was left to Baldwin FitzGilbert who was appointed castellan , amongst other honours . A deep ditch and internal rampart were constructed between the north - western and north - eastern city walls , forming a roughly square enclosure with sides of about 600 ft . The " Domesday Book " of 1086 reported that 48 houses had been destroyed in Exeter since the King came to England — this has been interpreted by historians to mean that this many houses were on the site cleared for the castle . A large stone gatehouse , which still survives , was built into the bank at the south side of the enclosure . It has clear elements of Anglo - Saxon architecture , such as long - and - short quoins and double triangular - headed windows , suggesting that it was built very early by Anglo - Saxon masons on the Normans ' orders . At this early stage the rampart was probably surmounted by a stockade , though two corner turrets were soon built where the bank met the city walls , the western one of which ( mistakenly known as " Athelstan ' s Tower " ) is still present . The stockade was soon replaced by a masonry curtain wall . The remains of this wall shows that it was bonded into the repaired city walls , but not the gatehouse , indicating that it was built from the former towards the latter . Another early enhancement was the construction of a protective barbican over the city side of the drawbridge . There is evidence that the castle was attacked before it was completed . This evidence is both physical , in the form of repairs to Athelstan ' s Tower ; and documentary , in a report made by Orderic Vitalis of an attack made on Exeter in 1069 . In the early 12th century a chapel dedicated to St Mary was built within the castle walls . It had four prebendaries and was said to have been founded by William de Avenell , a son of the castle - builder Baldwin FitzGilbert ; de Avenell also founded a priory at nearby Cowick . The siege of 1136 and after . In 1136 , Baldwin de Redvers seized the castle as part of his rebellion against King Stephen . Although Stephen ' s army moved quickly to besiege the castle , Redvers was able to resist for three months until the failure of his water supply , which had been provided by a well and probably a rainwater cistern . It is possible that the absence of an eastern tower to match Athelstan ' s Tower is due to its destruction by undermining during this siege , and the discovery in c . 1930 of a short section of crudely built tunnel leading towards this point of the wall has been interpreted as associated with this event . It is also likely that the barbican was captured and destroyed at this time . On a hill just to the north of the castle lies a small circular earthwork . It is known today as " Danes Castle " , but from the 12th century until the 16th it was called " New Castle " . It was thought to be an outwork of Rougemont Castle , built to defend its northern side , but following excavation in 1992 it is now believed to have been built by Stephen during his siege . After Stephen ' s attack it appears that the advancing technology of siege engine s prompted the construction in the late 12th century of an outer bailey . This consisted of a wall with an outer ditch which ran from the eastern city wall on the north side of Bailey Street — where the only remaining section of its wall survives — to the western city wall near today ' s city museum , where portions of the infilled ditch were discovered during renovation works in 2009 . The castle continued to be repaired at intervals until the early 14th century ; the last recorded repair to the defences being in 1352 . By c . 1500 the original gateway was out of use , and its entrance blocked up , in favour of an adjacent archway . In the northernmost corner of the castle there was a sally port beneath a large tower and a drawbridge over the ditch outside the wall . These were destroyed in 1774 and no trace now remains . Although it has always officially been called " Exeter Castle " , the more common name of " Rougemont Castle " first appeared in a local record dated around 1250 . It refers to the red colour of the rock on the hill and the colour of the walls built from these rocks . King Richard III visited Exeter in 1483 and in Shakespeare ' s " Richard III " , the bard makes him later recall a premonition of his death when he is shown the castle and confuses " Rougemont " with " Richmond " . The castle was said to have been badly damaged during the Second Cornish Uprising of 1497 when Perkin Warbeck and 6 , 000 Cornishmen entered the city , and by 1600 it was said to display " gaping chinks and an aged countenance . " 17th to 20th centuries . In 1607 a courthouse was built within the castle walls , and in 1682 and 1685 the four " Devon witches " were tried here , before being executed at Heavitree . They were the last people in England to be executed for witchcraft ; a plaque on the wall by the gatehouse commemorates the events . The noted cartographer and chorographer , John Norden produced a plan of the castle and its precincts in 1617 . It shows , amongst other features , the newly built court houses , the chapel , the position of the castle well , the north sally - port and what may have been the ruined walls of a rectangular keep against the north - eastern wall . The castle did not play a major role during the Civil War , although in late 1642 Parliament authorised the City of Exeter to use £300 of public funds to fortify the city and perform repairs to the castle . Despite there being at least four artillery batteries at the castle , the city fell to the Royalists in 1643 , then to the Parliamentarians in 1646 . During part of the war the gatehouse was used as a prison . In 1773 all the buildings within the castle walls were demolished and replaced with a courthouse built in limestone in the Palladian style . The design was by local architect Philip Stowey , amended by James Wyatt . At this time , the early - 16th - century entrance arch was replaced by a new one , built of reclaimed stone and sporting a false portcullis . This remains the entrance to the site today . The court buildings were extended to the west in 1895 , creating offices for the new County Council , and extended again in 1905 by the addition of a neo - Palladian wing to the east . A section of the castle wall between the gatehouse and the eastern city wall was found to be in imminent state of collapse in 1891 and despite efforts to repair it , it fell in October of that year . The unstable part of the wall was that around the site of the circular tower shown on Norden ' s plan of 1617 . It was speculated that when this tower was demolished ( at an unknown date ) , the rebuild was of very poor quality . After the demolition of St Mary ' s chapel with the other buildings in the late 18th century , a lodge had been built close to the new castle entrance . This lodge was threatened by the unsafe wall and during works to make it safe , excavations in its floor revealed a number of human skeletons which were assumed to have been buried in the grounds of the chapel . Thomas Westcote wrote in around 1630 that the chapel was " ruinous " and a document of 1639 records that Bishop Hall was requested to assign the chapel precinct " for buryall of such Prisoners as shall die in the Gaole . " Other notable events that took place at the castle included a Monsieur St Croix making the first hot - air balloon ascent in Exeter from the Castle yard in June 1786 ; and on 15 May 1832 the first Annual Exhibition of the Devon Agricultural Society , the forerunner of the Devon County Show , was held here . 21st century . Until 2003 the intact Georgian buildings of the castle remained the seat of royal power in the county and served as home to Exeter ' s Crown and County Courts . As a result the castle was one of the least known and accessible parts of the city , and few local residents had set foot beyond its gates ; it had never been accessible to tourists . However difficulties over disabled access on the steep castle site had become a major problem , and new courts were built in Exeter ' s legal quarter in 2004 . Following the failure of a scheme for Exeter City Council to purchase the site , it was sold by Her Majesty ' s Courts Service in early 2007 to GL50 Properties , whose managing director said " Rougemont Castle is an amazing building which we will transform into the Covent Garden of the South West of England . " Today , the castle is subject to a high degree of legal protection as a Scheduled Monument , and its main structures are all either Grade I or Grade II * listed buildings . A statue , dated 1863 , by E . B . Stevens of the 1st Earl Fortescue stands in the yard : it is Grade II listed . As the relevant planning authority , the city council explained its concerns about the future of the castle . It stated its view that whatever its future use , the castle should be opened up to reasonable public access and integrated into the cultural quarter of the city as a key element , the historic importance and quality of the site and buildings should be respected , and at least the impressive courtyard of the castle should be available for public events even if the buildings are purchased for commercial use . As an example of this new use , the band Coldplay played a charity concert in the courtyard in December 2009 during its Viva la Vida Tour . In 2011 , the former Court 1 reopened as the Ballroom , with its arched windows lowered to floor level ; lavatories have been installed in the former holding cells for prisoners . Court 2 reopened as the Gallery , of 150 square metres . In addition , 12 new apartments have been created within the walls of the castle .