Why Is This English King‘s Ruined Castle So Controversial?

The medieval landscape north of York was dominated by one royal castle. In the 1530s John Leland said I saw no house in the north so much like the palace of a prince. The approach from the southeast was designed to impose its grandeur and strength upon its visitor who'd follow this path around with the canals either side. Then climb the embankments into the outer court and middle court which included a roadway on this retaining wall of which the buttresses still survive for some 60 feet or so. This leading to the entrance gate with four medieval coat of arms announcing that this grand edifice was built for the great Neville family in 1382 passing into the hands of the infamous King Richard III in 1471 and today this led to a very controversial find here. Sheriff Hutton Castle is a treat for all Ricardians and the owners have very kindly allowed me in within the 73 foot by 57 foot inner courtyard where visitors would have been engulfed in the enormity of this castle with its four corner towers standing roughly 100 feet tall. My favourite is the northwest tower but the southwest tower still has a steep stairwell in the wall leading to a turret above the parapet in the southwest angle offering uninterrupted views of the surrounding Vale of York and allowing incoming visitors to be spotted from miles away. Once they got closer on the approach I showed you by the canal if we go into the lower floor of this tower the owner told me that this window on the south wall was used to wave to and observe whoever was entering accompanied by a private guard rope or a medieval toilet. This room is equipped with a fireplace and is now used for weddings as well as providing a wonderful example of the sheer thickness of these 14th century defensive walls. This tower displays that the castle was not only built as a fortress but also as a palace built for high status living. The guard robes, toilets on every floor, the dramatically high ceilings and the large trefoil headed windows of the upper stories which Elizabeth of York would have no doubt looked out of on many occasions. Richard III sent Elizabeth his niece to the safety of this castle when it became clear Henry Tudor would be launching an invasion of England. Access to each floor was granted by a vice in the northwest angle from the basement beneath the wedding room which is only accessible from the vice. The basement ran all along the southern range of the castle of which 70 feet of walling attached to the east of the tower survives with four windows built in because this was likely the great hall of the castle where the council of the north would have met. This was an administrative body set up in 1484 by Richard III based here at Sheriff Hutton and at Sandal Castle. On the outer face of the tower another fireplace for this great hall accompanied by another guard robe. This range connected the two southern towers. The southeast tower is extremely disfigured but again displays the 14th century craftsmanship deployed on the first and second floor windows as well as another guard robe this time built into the southeast angle. Imagine a medieval servant taking a quick break here after tending to the needs of some of the country's most powerful men in the adjoining hall or maybe Richard Neville known as Warwick the Kingmaker who owned the castle before Richard III as seen by the coat of arms again the first second and fourth bearing the Neville arms and the third between Neville and Beaufort. After Ralph Neville married the sister of King Henry IV the gate is missing most of its versoirs that formed the curvature of the gate but we know this was an early 15th century addition built into the 14th century masonry around it but in this gate was the first simply amazing find of this video. The rarest dog breed native to the UK otter hounds were bred in medieval England to hunt otters when they were considered vermin in the canals and fish ponds of noble estates such as here at Sheriff Hutton. Richard III and Henry VIII both at one time resident at this castle were known as masters of the otter hounds and the current owners actually bought one for themselves to live where her ancestors did all those years ago. She's one of less than a dozen hundred on the planet amazing English heritage and here she is in the old outer court near the only example of what the ranges that connected the towers once looked like with a lower apartment showing the same barrel vaulting used across the whole site that's so distinctive. The apartment's far less grandiose of course than the towers just a few narrow single light windows lighting the 22 foot long interior. This range extended all the way up to the northeast tower and on this tower the walling attached to the corner indicates the opposite side of the huge outer court which extended to the embankment but this tower again with its windows and guardrail passages and barrel vaulting is the best display of the 2011 consolidation efforts performed after a £900,000 English heritage grant to save this structure so important to our culture and now you can actually stay within this castle at these two holiday rentals within or just outside in the outer court there's another one the owners are lovely people so i'll throw a link in the description for anyone who may be interested. Behind this cabin is a deep depression in the ground connecting the basements of the two north towers now very much overgrown. Imagine these basements even when Henry VIII granted the estate to his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy in the 16th century who kept 100 of his own servants here whilst the castle already employed 142 staff for its administrative roles working away in these ditches and towers but to me this final tower is actually the most impressive as a good amount of the full five stories remain visible with most windows still entire not as regal as its opposite southern tower which had four higher ceiling floors as opposed to the five shorter ceiling floors here from the basement which has entirely fallen in we see a brick backed fireplace and these fireplaces run up the north wall increasing in condition as they ascend with the top fireplace being almost perfect this is over 600 years old there are some stunning features within this tower including a vast amount of graffiti that you may have noticed around the whole building because Fitzroy died in 1536 and the council of the north soon relocated from here to King's Manor in York a period of decay followed as the lead from the roof was removed and sold leaving the castle vulnerable to the elements in 1621 the estate was bought by Sir Arthur Ingram who if you've ever read about Yorkshire history he seems to have owned every estate here but he ripped much of the remaining stonework away to build another country house for himself on the grounds with one particular feature disappearing from this castle a chapel was previously recorded here served by two priests but was dissolved in 1548 this takes us to the controversial find you see half a kilometre to the east of the current castle is another mound these are the last surviving remains of the original Norman Mott & Bailey castle built by the Bulmer family who were Anglo-Saxon nobles and sheriffs of York hence the village name before they married into the Neville family in the 14th century no castle remains now but beside here is a church built around the same time in the early 1100s some of the stone actually said to be reused Roman stone from York walking into this church like Richard did many times as king and you're immediately greeted by a commemorative Ricardian banner displaying the dates of his reign from 1483 to 1485 and with the coat of arms flanked by white boars the personal badge of king Richard III which also decorates a standard in the north aisle of the church accompanied by two white Yorkist roses on a murrayan blue background the livery colours of the house of York behind this in the 15th century window is the sun of splendor another symbol used by the house of York beneath all of this a mutilated alabaster effigy clearly severely damaged by weathering unlike the effigy beside it which is actually far older so this was not the tomb's original location suspiciously it was not mentioned in a 1584 visitation but was in 1623 just after the ingrams had the castle torn apart so it's very much possible that this effigy was moved here from the castle but who is this young boy in 1483 13,000 white boar badges were distributed in a glorious ceremony beside York Minster when Richard III's only legitimate son Edward of Middleham was invested as Prince of Wales roughly seven months later he fell ill and died at Middleham to apparently be brought to Sheriff Hutton and buried with his Neville relatives because his mother and wife of Richard III was Anne Neville making him the only Prince of Wales to have ever been buried in a church the belief that this is Edward goes back to about 1904 and this is where it gets controversial the signs the heraldry everyone i bumped into in the village said you must go to the church a royal a plantagenet is buried there the use of alabaster for tomb monuments was pioneered by royal patronage initially with the 1330s effigy of Edward II and his grandson here at York Minster Prince William of Hatfield the carving quality here in Sheriff Hutton was poorer even before it was so degraded but there's some extremely important details to focus closely in on like the bowl cut cropped around the juvenile ears a hairstyle popular in the first half of the 15th century plus contemporary accounts depict Edward with the longer hair fashionable later in the second half of the century also the Yorkshire pattern of the tomb chest that being half angels holding shields flanking a central trinity is firmly dated to the 1420s with no direct comparison any later in the century the kneeling supplicant in the trinity is also depicted with the same short rounded haircut suggesting this tomb dates to the second quarter of the 15th century not the final quarter when Edward of Middleham passed away but this tomb is actually a cenotaph so there's nobody to prove who it is but the two unusual Saint George's crosses suggest it may be Ralph Neville who died young in 1436 his father and grandfathers were knights of the garter and his grandmother a lady of the order which would explain the Saint George's crosses whether it is Edward or Ralph or someone else we may never know for sure but the firmly held belief that this is Edward is likely untrue it's almost certainly a Neville so this is still pure English heritage please do leave a like if you enjoyed this one