Conisborough Castle – The Keep and Curtain Wall

Conisborough is one of the most interesting sites in South Yorkshire. Before the conquest the Manor born to King Harold, but the conqueror granted to William Earl Warren and its descent to its present owner – Lord Conyers – has been recently traced in the “Yorkshire archaeological Journal,” volumes eight and nine.

The most striking and important feature in this castle is the keep, erected about the time of Richard Coeur girl Lion, by Hamline Plantagenet, who held Conisborough in right of his wife Isabel de Warrene.

Mr G T Clark, Society on ancient fortifications, regards the excavation of the date of the original English work, to which an early, though not the earliest, Norman Lord added the curtain wall and much of the lower gatehouse, and also built a hall, kitchen, and lodgings within the inner area.

The keep was built about a century later, the curtain wall been taken down at one point to make room for part of it. It is only fair to say that Mr A.S.Ellis, an architect called in to advise the trustees of Lord Conyers in 1885, is our opinion that the keep must have stood alone for years, as the curtain wall is of later date. Our own impression agrees with that of Mr Clarke, namely, that the curtain is older than the keep.

In 1885, the trustees of Lord Conyers were authorised by the Court of Chancery to spend a small sum of money in repairs, but nothing had been done when we saw the keep in August last.

Some careful repair, particularly of the upper portion of the tower, is most desirable, both in the interests of the building, and in that of the tourists were in the summer resort to it in large numbers.