Morpeth Castle; or what remains of it. This is actually just the gatehouse and dates from the 1340s. Very little is left of the rest of the castle. But even though this gatehouse has been much altered throughout the centuries it is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and Grade I listed building. It is now used as a holiday let.
Morpeth is a castle where nothing much seems to have happened. Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots, stayed there after fleeing Scotland. After the death of her husband, King James IV at the Battle of Flodden, she became regent to the child King James V. This made her quite a few enemies coupled with the fact that she was the sister of England’s King Henry VIII, Scotland’s enemy at the time.
The castle’s other claim to fame was during the English Civil War when, in 1644, 500 Scottish Covenanters held it for Parliament against 2,700 besieging Royalists.
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