Bolingbroke Castle: A Medieval Stone Fortress and Lancaster Stronghold
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- English
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page17 sections
History
Bolingbroke Castle is a thirteenth-century Norman stone castle in the United Kingdom, at Old Bolingbroke in Lincolnshire. Founded around 1220–1230 by Ranulf de Blondeville, 6th Earl of Chester and 1st Earl of Lincoln, it became associated with the Lancaster inheritance and the birth of Henry IV, who was known before his accession as Henry Bolingbroke.
Saxon and Norman origins
The area was first fortified by the Saxons in the sixth or seventh century. In the twelfth century, the Normans established a motte-and-bailey castle on the hill above the settlement. This type of fortification combined a raised defended mound with an adjoining enclosed yard. The later stone castle replaced that earlier arrangement.
The thirteenth-century castle
Ranulf de Blondeville founded the present castle after returning from the Fifth Crusade. The earliest recorded references to the new stone building date from 1232 and 1240. Ranulf died in 1232 without a male heir, and his titles, lands, and castles passed to his sisters and their heirs.
Bolingbroke subsequently followed the Lincoln inheritance through John de Lacy, Henry de Lacy, and Alice de Lacy. Through marriage, the castle later entered the Lancaster inheritance. John of Gaunt, a son of King Edward III and a major member of the later Plantagenet royal family, acquired that inheritance through his marriage to Blanche of Lancaster.
The Lancaster connection
John of Gaunt and Blanche were closely connected with the castle. Their son Henry was born at Bolingbroke in 1367 and became King Henry IV of England in 1399. His earlier connection with the castle gave rise to the name Henry Bolingbroke. Blanche died at the castle in 1369 during a plague outbreak.
During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Bolingbroke served as an administrative centre of the Duchy of Lancaster. This was the historic landed estate held by the English monarch and administered as a distinct territorial institution. Although the castle’s royal owners seldom visited it, its administrative function continued.
Decline and Civil War
Repairs were carried out during the Tudor period, but the castle continued to deteriorate. Duchy auditors visited only once a year. By 1600, four towers were uninhabitable, and a survey in 1636 found all the towers effectively beyond repair. Seventeenth-century structures associated with local administrative officials included the Receiver’s Tower and the Feodary’s Tower. Lead for the gatehouse roof was taken from an abandoned chapel at Trusthorpe.
At the beginning of the First English Civil War, the first phase of the seventeenth-century conflicts between Royalists supporting the monarchy and Parliamentarians opposing royal authority, the castle was reoccupied as a Royalist fortification. In September 1643, William Cavendish placed a garrison of 200 soldiers there. Parliamentarian forces began a siege on 9 October, and the castle suffered severe damage during the Battle of Winceby on 11 October. The garrison continued its defence until 14 November.
The castle was recaptured from Parliamentarian forces the following year but was later relinquished. In 1652, after the Civil War, its fortifications were slighted to prevent further military use. Much of the curtain wall and the upper walls were demolished, and the rubble was tipped into the moat. Local residents later reused some of the stone in house building.
Ruins and conservation
By the nineteenth century, turf had covered much of the ruin. The highest surviving structure, the watchtower, collapsed in May 1815. Responsibility for the site passed into government care in 1949. Archaeological investigations and searches for buried remains followed during the 1960s and 1970s.
English Heritage managed the castle until 1995, when responsibility passed to Heritage Lincolnshire, which continues to manage it in cooperation with English Heritage. Bolingbroke is a nationally protected monument and a Grade I listed historic site.
Remains
The surviving castle occupies a level area surrounded by three hills and forms an irregular polygonal enclosure approximately 75 metres across. Its principal construction material is Spilsby Greenstone, a local limestone whose porosity made it vulnerable to rapid weathering. A broad, partly filled water moat surrounds the enclosure, while the lower curtain wall and the ground floors of the towers remain visible among the ruins.
Moat and defensive enclosure
Moat
The water-filled moat is about 30–31 metres wide. It surrounds the castle enclosure and remains broad despite being partly filled. Demolition rubble from the upper walls and towers was deposited in it after the fortifications were slighted in 1652.
Curtain wall
The curtain wall, the enclosing defensive wall between towers and gates, was approximately 3.5–5 metres thick. Much of its lower course survives. One remaining section reaches about 18 feet in height, while other stretches stand approximately 2–3 metres above ground level. The upper portions were demolished after the Civil War, leaving the lower masonry as the principal visible boundary of the enclosure.
Towers and entrance
Towers
The defensive circuit included five D-shaped towers. Their ground floors survive, and the remains at the former tower sites reach roughly 3 metres above ground level. The watchtower was the highest surviving part of the ruin until its collapse in 1815. Other towers had become uninhabitable by 1600 and were considered beyond repair by 1636.
Gatehouse
The northern entrance was approached across a bridge and passed through a twin-towered gatehouse. Excavation identified the former drawbridge. The gatehouse roof was once covered with lead, some of which was obtained in the seventeenth century from an abandoned chapel at Trusthorpe.
Courtyards and associated buildings
Inner courtyard
Within the main enclosure lay a courtyard containing a timber representative hall and service buildings. These structures provided the principal domestic and administrative spaces inside the stone defensive circuit.
Outer courtyard
An outer courtyard extended beyond the main castle. It was used for confining animals or grazing livestock, giving the complex a practical function beyond its defensive buildings.
Norman church
A Norman church stood near the castle. Its south aisle was built by John of Gaunt in 1363, linking the surviving local religious building with the period when Bolingbroke formed part of the Lancaster inheritance.
