Qualla: Castle Rising Castle

Castle Rising Castle: Introduction

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit William Taylor, died mid-19th century, Public domain. When William d'Aubigny II built Castle Rising soon after 1138, he was not particularly interested in defending anything. Norfolk was prosperous but not strategically vital; the land around the site was thinly populated, with poor acidic soil. What the location offered was cheapness and space — room enough to build a palatial hunting lodge and establish a deer park stretching 16 miles in circumference. Historian Richard Hulme describes William's project exactly for what it was: not a fortress but a statement of arrival, the building of a man who had recently married the widow of a king and become the Earl of Arundel.

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Image: William Taylor, died mid-19th century | Public domain

Castle Rising Castle: A Monument to Ambition

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michael Dibb, CC BY-SA 2.0. The great keep at Castle Rising is, by scholarly consensus, one of the finest Norman keeps in England. Historians Beric Morley and David Gurney call it 'one of the finest of all Norman keeps,' and its Romanesque decoration — pilaster buttresses, elaborate arcading — is thought to...

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Image: Michael Dibb | CC BY-SA 2.0

Castle Rising Castle: Isabella of France

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Elliott Brown, CC BY 2.0. The most famous occupant of Castle Rising arrived under complicated circumstances. Queen Isabella — mother of Edward III, former co-regent of England, and a woman who had helped overthrow and murder her husband Edward II — fell from power in 1330 when her son moved against her an...

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Image: Elliott Brown | CC BY 2.0

Castle Rising Castle: Centuries of Decline

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chris Eaton, CC BY-SA 2.0. After Isabella, Castle Rising passed to Edward the Black Prince as part of the Duchy of Cornwall — Edward III having decreed in 1337 that the castle would belong permanently to the Prince of Wales. The Black Prince made repairs in the 1360s, including spending £81 on the 'Nighteg...

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Image: Chris Eaton | CC BY-SA 2.0

Castle Rising Castle: Excavation and Open Air

Fri, 22 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Elliott Brown, CC BY 2.0. The Victorian rediscovery of Castle Rising began with the Howard family, who inherited the property and opened it to the public around 1900. The Ministry of Works took custody of the site in 1958 and carried out systematic archaeological investigations during the 1960s and 1970s ...

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Image: Elliott Brown | CC BY 2.0