Rearuh

The Great Hall

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Map of central Leicester. The dotted line shows the line of the medieval town walls.

A view of the castle wall

The motte in early 2018

Leicester Castle is in the city of the same name in the English county of Leicestershire. The complex is situated in the west of Leicester City Centre, between Saint Nicholas Circle to the north and De Montfort University to the south. A large motte and the Great Hall are the two substantial remains of what was once a large defensive structure. The hall is now encased in a Queen Anne style frontage.

History

Leicester Castle was part of the medieval town defences, built over the Roman town walls.^[1]

According to Leicester Museums, the castle was probably built around 1070 (soon after the Norman Conquest in 1066)^[2] under the governorship of Hugh de Grantmesnil. The remains now consist of a mound, along with ruins. Originally the mound was 40 ft (12.2 m) high. Kings sometimes stayed at the castle (Edward I in 1300, and Edward II in 1310 and 1311), and John of Gaunt and his second wife Constance of Castile both died here in 1399 and 1394 respectively.

Eventually, however, it was used mainly as a courthouse (sessions being held in the Great Hall), rather than a residence.^[3] Apart from being used for Assize Courts (J. M. Barrie visited regularly and spent many hours inside as reporter for a newspaper when the hall was used as a court house), the Great Hall was also used for sessions of the Parliament of England most notably the Parliament of Bats in 1426, when the conditions in London were not suitable. It is also known for its connections with the Plantagenet family.

The Castle, the Turret Gateway, the Great Hall and "John of Gaunt's Cellar" (erroneously called a dungeon) are all scheduled monuments,^[4] and are variously listed buildings also. St Mary de Castro is a Grade I listed building.

A section of the castle wall, adjacent to the Turret Gateway, has gun loops (holes) that were poked through the medieval wall to use as firing ports by the city's residents when Parliamentarian Leicester was besieged, captured, and ransacked, during the English civil war by the main Royalist Field army under King Charles I of England and Prince Rupert on 31st May 1645. The third storey of the Turret Gateway (erroneously known as 'Prince Rupert's gateway') was destroyed in an election riot in 1832.^[5]

Description

The Castle complex contains:

• Castle Gardens, a set of gardens along the bank of the canal (there are official British Waterways secure overnight moorings for visiting boaters).


• The church of St Mary de Castro, the oldest part of which dates to the 12th century, and still in use as a Church of England parish church


• The Great Hall, built in about 1150 by Robert de Bossu, 2nd Earl of Leicester. It was extensively rebuilt and the roof structure replaced in about 1523. The brick frontage dates from 1695. It was used as a law court from the earliest times until 1992.


• 'John of Gaunt's Cellar' (erroneously called a dungeon)


• The remains of the castle itself


• Castle Yard, the open area between the Great Hall and St Mary de Castro, which was used for public executions. A nearby plaque records that John Wesley addressed "a great crowd" here in 1770.


• The Turret Gateway (erroneously called 'Prince Rupert's gateway').

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Leicester Castle and The Newarke precinct, showing the Motte and bailey (green), boundary walls of The Newarke (blue), and the southern side of the town wall (red). The historic sites include:- 1 Leicester Castle 2 Castle gateway 3 Church of St Mary de Castro 4 Turret gateway 5 Trinity House - former Trinity Hospital 6 Newarke Houses Museum 7 site of Church of the Annunciation of Our Lady of the Newarke, now includes DMU heritage centre 8 Magazine Gateway 9 South gates

See also

• Castles in Great Britain and Ireland


• List of castles in England


• List of museums in Leicestershire


• Jewry Wall Museum


• New Walk Museum


• Abbey Pumping Station


• Leicester Guildhall

References

Further reading

• 
  Fox, Levi (1941–42). "Leicester Castle" (PDF). Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society. 22: 127–170.
  

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Leicester Castle.

• Bibliography of sources relating to Leicester Castle


• Photographs of the area around the castle

Coordinates: 52°37′56.4″N 1°8′28.3″W / 52.632333°N 1.141194°W / 52.632333; -1.141194