HEIGHLEY CASTLE

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building

Grade:: II

List Entry Number:: 1353703

Date first listed:: 17-Nov-1966

Date of most recent amendment:: 14-May-1985

Statutory Address:: HEIGHLEY CASTLE, HEIGHLEY LANE

Map

Ordnance survey map of HEIGHLEY CASTLE — © Crown Copyright and database right 2019. All rights reserved. Ordnance Survey Licence number 100024900.
© British Crown and SeaZone Solutions Limited 2019. All rights reserved. Licence number 102006.006.
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Location

Statutory Address:: HEIGHLEY CASTLE, HEIGHLEY LANE

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Staffordshire

District:: Newcastle-under-Lyme (District Authority)

Parish:: Madeley

National Grid Reference:: SJ 77243 46696

Details

SJ 74 NE 2/52 17/11/66

MADELEY C.P. HEIGHLEY LANE Heighley Castle (formerly listed as Heighley Castle Ruins)

II

Castle, remains of. Medieval, probably mainly early C13. Only fragments of walling survive, dressed sandstone and uncoursed rubble with facing removed; traces of curtain wall all round site but best preserved on lower south end of motte platform, where there is a section of retaining wall (dressed stone) approximately 8m high by 15m long and a small fragment, perhaps the remains of a tower. Another substantial piece of walling, about 6m high and 5m long, to north-west. The main entrance seems to have been on the west, where there is a well-preserved, partly stone crevetted causeway across the deep rock-cut ditch. What appears to be unauthorised excavation (Summer 1984) by the curtain wall on the south-east has revealed a dressed stone wall(probably part of an entrance) with the corbelled springing of a vault. Well is marked on the Ordnance Survey map, but no trace of it now survives. Impressive earthworks; steep-sided ovalshaped motte surrounded on all sides (except south-east, where defences rely on natural slope) by deep rock-cut ditch with outer bank. The castle was begun by Henry de Audley in 1233. Spectacularly situated and commanding extensive views over surrounding countryside, the ruins are overgrown at the time of re-survey (1984). Scheduled Ancient Monument. V.C.H., I (1908),p. 352.

Listing NGR: SJ7724346696

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 362661

Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Page, W, The Victoria History of the County of Stafford, (1908), 352

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.

End of official listing

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