Kirkoswald Castle

Licked by nettles and kissed by trees, Kirkoswald Castle is a slender monument hidden away in Cumbria.

It would be simple to miss if you whizzed by but taking your time and pulling in at the small layby, you can get out and have a wander. There were cows in the field on our approach but all quite docile and grass-gorged, so didn't bat an eyelid at us clambering the style.

On the hunt for the castle, your eye is drawn to a small squat tower on a hill and you think you've clocked it, but this is curiously the bell tower belonging to the village church which is named after Oswald, King of Northumbria, 'Church of Oswald'. His body was thought to have been carried through the village en route to his burial. We'd never seen a bell tower detached and remote from the church before and learned that it was probably positioned there to warn villagers of the imminent arrival of any rogue Scots marauders in addition to signalling the start of a service!

Overgrown and eclipsed, a single tumbledown tower is the only reminder of the short life of Kirkoswald Castle. Built in around 1210, it was ruinous a century later. We followed the footpath to the side of the castle and spotted a sign which states that entry is only sometimes permitted, so I guess if you go, it's under the proviso that you might not necessarily get up close and personal with the castle. We were lucky and managed to meander through the nettles, across the moat, following the small way markers.

The tower is a historical sliver in pinky Penrith sandstone, built to impress and defend. Landowners, twitchy after the tyrannical 'Great Raid' of 1322 by Robert the Bruce began building fortified houses and towers in an attempt to overthrow impending marauders in a time of ongoing argy bargy between the borders.

This castle must've stood through some turbulent times and the crumbling stone belied its once significant stature. Known as an enclosure castle and located on raised ground just adjacent to the village, there are only 126 structures of this type in the country which are all significantly different, making this a rare national example.

We thought there'd be more, but all that remains is a single cell tower which you can take a tiny tour of by stepping inside.

Owned by the Dacres in 1329, they were one of the most significant military families of the North in their day, making it a major medieval monument today. Kirkoswald Castle was an administrative hub and their regimental HQ for 100 years with a razzle dazzle moat to signify wealth and social standing rather than more practically for defence.

Towards the end of 15th century a great hall and chapel had been added but by the 1600s the castle was abandoned.

Dacre's daughter Elizabeth, known as 'Bess of the broad apron' due to the breadth of land and property she had inherited upon her father's death, had married Lord William Howard. In an attempt to secure their new future at Naworth and keeping a castle in their midst, they dismantled the family home over the next 30 years to reuse and recycle, taking the chapel ceiling, the beams and stained glass and the stone to strengthen their position at Naworth near Lanercost to build a new castle of greater proportions. Many of the houses in Kirkoswald will also have been built from the castle's cast-offs.

We could see lancet windows through the few doorways and it rose to three stories of rough rubbley stone up to 60 feet. Much of the tower has tumbled and will now be below ground level but we caught glimpses of a round arched doorway and a vaulted ceiling, plodging through the damp moat and nettley pathways.

It must surely have been a sight to behold in its heyday, sat proud of the village. Once home to noblemen, we were happy to see it now a home to moat floating frogs, summer flowers and birds nesting on the ledges.

Life still lingers in these remains today in this ruin which is on the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. The ruins and the moat are both scheduled monuments, a reminder of the rich heritage and history that once held house here.