May 2nd – Sheffield Lit. & Philos.Society – Castle at Conisborough

May 1877

May 2nd Sheffield Telegraph

Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society – The Castle at Conisborough

At the meeting of the Society at the School of Art last evening, Mr J.B.Mitchell Withers, F.R.I.B.A., read a paper on “the Castle at Conisborough, with some remarks on the Keep Towers of the 11th and 12th centuries.”

Mr Baker the president was in the chair, and the paper, which was highly interesting, was listened to by an audience of ladies and gentlemen which quite filled the room.

Mr Mitchell Withers stated that in the early times, as we learn from Domesday book, Conisbrough, was a place of considerable importance, holding sway overan extentof territory which might well be described as a Royal Saxon and demesne.

At the time of the conquests it was thought to be a worthy present from the Norman Conqueror to his son-in-law, William de Warren, in whose family remained until 1733, when it was sold to the ancestors of the Duke of Leeds.

The paper referred to the probability of it being used successively to a date later than the Norman invasion. The keep is considered to have been erected by Hamelisse de Warren, who died in 1202, and the author explained the friendship which existed between Richard Cour de Leon and this noble, and from comparisons of his subject with the Chateau Galliard, in France, assumed that Richard, who is known to have himself planned the latter, probably suggested the plan of the keep of Conisbrough.

The paper concluded with a notice of the weapons of warfare of the age. The paper was illustrated by sketches, diagrams and photographs, and Mr Mitchell Withers received the thanks of his auditors at the close of his paper.