Banbury Castle
Banbury Castle was a medieval castle that stood near the centre of the town of Banbury, Oxfordshire. Rebuilt in the mid-13th century into a distinctive five-sided concentric plan, it later served as a prison and was deliberately slighted in 1648. Nothing remains above ground today; the site is marked by Castle Street and was excavated in 1973–74.
Its prime
1250
Today
Demolished
As it stood in 1250
What Banbury Castle looked like in its prime.
At its prime (c.1250) Banbury Castle presented a compact, five-sided concentric layout: a continuous stone curtain forming a pentagon set on thick earthen embankments. The outer wall rose from the bank and included a projecting gatehouse on the townward side. Within the outer circuit lay an inner ward containing low timber-roofed domestic ranges whose roofs sat below the wallhead. The castle occupied a slight rise close to the town centre.
Its story
The story of Banbury Castle.
Bishop Alexander's Motte and the Castle-Guard, 1135–1207
Banbury Castle was built in 1135 by Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, on a motte and bailey plan, near the centre of the Oxfordshire town it took its name from. King Stephen confiscated it from Alexander in 1139, but returned it to the bishop later the same year, and from then until 1547 it stayed for the most part in the hands of his successors at Lincoln.
It was defended by a castle-guard drawn from the estates around Banbury. Between 1201 and 1207, in the reign of King John, the castle was strengthened.
The Concentric Rebuilding and the Bishops' Prison, 1225–1300
The castle was afterwards rebuilt from the ground up. Earlier historians dated that work to the late 13th century; excavation in the 1970s placed it between 1225 and 1250. The new castle was laid out on a concentric pentagonal plan with thick, embanked walls, and had a gatehouse whose design later damage has left uncertain. The historian John Kenyon calls Banbury "remarkable for its early concentric shape", a form usually met with in rather later castles such as Harlech or Beaumaris.
By the second half of the 13th century the bishops of Lincoln were using the castle as a prison.
Somerset, Northumberland and the Recusant Prison, 1547–1595
Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, bought the castle in 1547. It passed shortly afterwards to John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who sold it to the Crown in 1551. The prison then shrank, and by the 1560s had gone altogether; it was recreated in the 1580s to hold recusants, the Roman Catholics who refused the attendance at Church of England services that the law required. In 1595 the castle was leased to Richard Fiennes, 7th Baron Saye and Sele.
The Civil War Sieges, 1642–1646
When the First English Civil War began in August 1642, Banbury Castle was fortified by a Parliamentarian garrison under Richard Fiennes' son William. After the battle of Edgehill that October the Royalist army marched south and forced the surrender of the castle and its stock of 1,500 firearms.
The fortifications were strengthened, and in 1644 the castle was besieged again, this time by Parliamentarian forces commanded by William Fiennes. The royal governor, the 18-year-old William Compton, held out from July to October, when his brother James relieved the siege. Charles I dined in the castle that November. In January 1646 Sir Edward Whalley laid siege again with a force of 3,000 men; the Royalist cause was collapsing, and in May Compton and his force of 300 men surrendered.
Slighted in 1648, Excavated in 1973–74
The castle was slighted in 1648, deliberately demolished to stop it being used again, and Parliament paid Fiennes £2,000 in compensation. Its stone went afterwards into houses in the town.
Nothing of Banbury Castle can now be seen above ground. Castle Street marks where it stood, and the site was excavated in 1973–74.
Step inside
6 places to explore in 1250.
The record describes 6 distinct spots at Banbury Castle, including 1 interior: prison cells (bishop's gaol). Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
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