Heaton Castle
Heaton Castle (anciently Heton) was a medieval quadrangular stone castle near the River Till in Cornhill-on-Tweed, Northumberland, long held by the de Grey family. Rebuilt about 1415, it was slighted in 1496 and today survives only as fragments incorporated into later farm outbuildings and earthworks.
Its prime
1415
Today
Ruin
As it stood in 1415
The shape it held in its prime.
A four-sided (quadrangular) stone castle with curtain walls enclosing a central courtyard and service ranges; a long stone barrel vault ran as part of a vaulted service or stable block. Surviving fabric in later times included two buttresses against the north-east wall of the stable-block, the remains of a small turret and adjoining rampart earthworks. The site stands on an elevated bank above the south side of the River Till in a rural agricultural landscape near the Tweed border.
Its story
The story of Heaton Castle.
Heaton was the seat of the de Heton family, who as was usual took their name from it, before passing about 1250 to a branch of the prominent de Grey family — descended from a follower of William FitzOsbern who fought at Hastings. Sir Thomas Grey (d. 1344) was an eminent soldier of the Anglo-Scottish wars, and in 1415 the Greys rebuilt Heaton as a quadrangular castle.
On 24 September 1496 James IV of Scotland, invading with the pretender Perkin Warbeck in the 'Raid of Ellem', set miners to slight the castle and paid his masons a bonus to work through the night; a horse was killed hauling a gun into position at the 'siege of Heaton'.
A survey of 1541 called Heaton 'ruinous', though a later report found 'a vault that a hundred horses may stand in'. Rebuilding attempts in the 1580s failed when the Greys fell into a funding dispute with the Crown, and the remnants now survive in the walls of outbuildings at the farm of Castle Heaton.
Step inside
6 places to explore in 1415.
The record describes 6 distinct spots at Heaton Castle — including 1 interior: long barrel-vaulted service/stable interior. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and walk through every one — more scenes means more photos, more angles and more rooms of the immersive experience.
Create History
Recreate Heaton Castle with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1415 — a photoreal walk that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
Recreate Castle to Explore →Whose castle
Clans who held Heaton Castle.
The families that held Heaton Castle for a decade or more across its history — follow a name to its clan.
Heton
Original seat of the de Heton family, who took their name from it, until about 1250.
Grey
Held by a branch of the de Grey family from about 1250; they rebuilt it as a quadrangular castle in 1415 and attempted repairs into the 1580s.
