Bolton Castle : A Northern Stronghold

Proud to include this random history walk by Alexandra Gough, student of English Literature and French at Durham University, England.

Bolton Castle ruins. Built between 1378-1399.

Bolton Castle is the 14th Century ancestral seat of the Scrope family. Built between 1378 and 1399 by Richard, 1st Baron Scrope (whose son William is notable for appearing as a character in Shakespeare’s play Richard II), the castle was reputed to have cost around 18,000 marks. Nestled in the Yorkshire dales near Wensleydale, Bolton Castle has been a northern stronghold for centuries, providing sanctuary to Adam Sedbar, a ringleader of the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1537. (The Pilgrimage of Grace was a name given to the religious insurgents in the north of England who opposed the dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry VIII).

Bolton Castle ruins, been in the Scrope family since the 1300s.

In 1568 it also served as the prison for Mary, Queen of Scots for the last six months of her life. Despite suffering some damage during the Civil War much of the castle remains intact, and it has been used as a filming location for period films such as Ivanhoe (1952) and Elizabeth (1998) and TV dramas such as All Creatures Great and Small. Bolton Castle has never been sold and is still the home of the Scrope family.