Chartley Castle lies in ruins to the north of the village of Stowe-by-Chartley in Staffordshire, between Stafford and Uttoxeter (grid reference SK010285). It is a Grade II* listed building[1]
The motte and bailey castle was built by one of the early Earls of Chester circa 1100 CE as a safe stop over for their journeys to places like Tutbury. The present Chartley castle was built on the site of one of the first wooden castles to be built in United Kingdom circa 900 AD, and was rebuilt in 1220 by Ranulph de Blondeville, 4th Earl of Chester, who died in 1232. It then passed by marriage to William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby. It remained in the Ferrers family for more than 200 years and in 1453 passed to Walter Devereux through his wife Elizabeth, the Ferrers heiress. Walter was created Baron Ferrers in 1461 and was killed at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. The castle was then abandoned as a residence and Chartley Manor, a moated and battlemented timber mansion, was built nearby but was destroyed by fire in 1781[2] What is now known as Chartley Manor was in fact known as Chartley Manor Farm until the 1980s
Substantial remains are still present today, including a rare cylindrical keep, a curtain wall flanked by two half-round towers, a twin-towered gatehouse and an angled tower. A survey conducted in the nineteenth century identified five towers ranging from 35 to 41 feet external diameter, and the keep, 50 feet in diameter [3]. One author has noted similarities of the plan to Montlhery near Paris, France, which Ranulph de Blondeville may have been familiar with[4]. M.W. Thompson has noted numerous architectural similarities between Chartley, Bolingbroke Castle, Lincolnshire, and also Beeston Castle in Cheshire, all thought to have been built under de Blondeville [5].
Chartley Manor was one of the last places of imprisonment of Mary, Queen of Scots. She spent almost a year there. After her long confinement at Tutbury Castle only a few miles to the east. "On the 25th of September (1586) she was removed to the strong castle of Fotheringay in Northamptonshire."[6] where she was beheaded on 8 Feb 1587.