Dudley Castle

The antiquarian William Camden claimed a castle stood here around the year 700, built by a Mercian duke named Dodo or Doddo, and later writers happily repeated it. Modern historians do not take the claim seriously. The castle is usually dated to soon after the Norman Conquest, with Ansculf de Picquigny thought to have raised the first timber motte and bailey in 1070; by the Domesday survey of 1086 his son William Fitz-Ansculf held it, the entry translating as "the said William held Dudley; and there is his castle". The Paganel family built the first stone castle, strong enough to withstand a siege by King Stephen's forces in 1138 — but after Gervase Paganel joined a failed rebellion, Henry II ordered it demolished in 1173, one of at least 21 castles slighted on his instructions.

Rebuilding began in 1262 under Roger de Somery II and continued into the fourteenth century under his heirs; the keep and main gate date from this work. The castle passed by marriage to the Suttons, was briefly seized by the younger Hugh Despenser between 1325 and 1326, and returned in 1327. In 1537 John Dudley, later Duke of Northumberland, ousted his indebted relative John Sutton and from around 1540 built a new range within the old walls, the architect being William Sharington — described by Historic England as "one of the earliest known examples of the influence of the Italian Renaissance on the secular architecture of the West Midlands". Dudley was executed in 1553 for attempting to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne. Elizabeth I visited in August 1575, and the castle was considered as a possible place of imprisonment for Mary, Queen of Scots.

In the First English Civil War a Royalist garrison under Colonel Thomas Leveson held the hill, enduring a Parliamentary siege in 1644 before surrendering to Sir William Brereton on 13 May 1646. The fortifications were then partly demolished so they could not be used again — that deliberate ruin is the keep you see today. Some habitable buildings remained, used occasionally by the Earls of Dudley, until a fire in July 1750, believed to have been accidental, devastated the Tudor residential buildings. The nineteenth century recast the site as a romantic ruin, with rebuilt battlements on one tower and two cannon captured during the Crimean War, and it hosted fêtes and pageants into the early twentieth century.

The entrance to the castle grounds is shared with Dudley Zoo, off Castle Hill (the A459) at one end of Dudley town centre. Allow time to walk the whole site rather than just the keep: the motte is the oldest surviving structure, a limestone-rubble core encased in clay standing around nine metres high, with the oval bailey and its dry moat beyond. East of the keep is the main gatehouse, still showing traces of the Paganel castle within later de Somery work, with the Suttons' barbican making the whole structure the so-called 'Triple Gate'. Between the main gate and the foot of the motte stands the stable block, the last building raised here.

Dudley Castle is a Grade I listed building and was placed on Historic England's Heritage at Risk register in 2020 owing to localised structural problems, so do respect any barriers or closures you find on the day, and check ahead before travelling. If you want to see the ruins after dark, organised public ghost hunts are held at the venue by event companies; book with the organisers in advance.