SANDAL CASTLE

West Riding of Yorkshire

Sandal Castle is remarkable, not just because of its size and strength but because everything you see today was underground until the early 1970s!

The de Warenne Earls of Surrey held a motte Castle in Wakefield (still there today) until 1157 when they decided to move two miles south to the high ground above the River Calder where they built Sandal Castle.  It seems likely that it was built of wood and earth throughout the de Warenne's tenure and wasn't converted to stone until Hamelin Plantagenet owned the Castle, marrying into the de Warenne's late in the 12th century.  Sandal was probably rebuilt in stone after work had finished on Plantagenet's other Castle at Conisbrough.

Hamelin died in 1202 so most of the work at Sandal was probably carried out by his son, William, and grandson, John.  The Castle passed into the Duchy of York in 1347.  Duke Richard, on 31st December 1460, rather ill-advisedly left the sanctuary of the Castle to fight a Lancastrian army gathered outside.  The ensuing Battle of Wakefield, one of the bloodiest in the Wars of the Roses, took place in view of Sandal Castle and resulted in the deaths of both Duke Richard and his eldest son and in the utter defeat of the Yorkist cause.

After this Sandal Castle never recovered its importance and it was a ruin by Elizabethan times. As was so often the case the Civil War saw the Castle's greatest glory and ultimate destruction. The Castle was besieged twice by the Roundheads who finally got access in 1645 and slighted the Castle to the extent that nothing remained but hummocks and bumps of earth.

The Castle remained that way until a massive excavation programme started in 1963; this finished in 1972 and revealed one of the largest and most advanced Castles of its time.

The excavated and massively impressive remains are on public land and accessible during day light hours.

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2001