The site of Moor End Castle (historically known as Moreende) is situated opposite Moor End Farm, along Moor End Road in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

Yardley Gobion Yardley Gobion ( ) is a village in the south of the English county of Northamptonshire off a by-pass of the A508 Northampton to Milton Keynes road. The village's name means 'rod wood/clearing', where they were made or acquired. Henry Gubyun h ...

, within the historic county of

Northamptonshire Northamptonshire (; abbreviated Northants.) is a county in the East Midlands of England. In 2015, it had a population of 723,000. The county is administered by two unitary authorities: North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire. It is ...

(the Modern Authority of

, the pre-

Local Government Act 1972 The Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant Acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Gov ...

county of

History

The castle was created in 1347 when Thomas de Ferrers was given

licence to crenellate In medieval England, Wales and the Channel Islands a licence to crenellate (or licence to fortify) granted the holder permission to fortify his property. Such licences were granted by the king, and by the rulers of the counties palatine within the ...

his house at Moor End. Later owners sold it to

the Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...

in 1363.

Edward III Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring r ...

regularly visited Moor End during the 1360s, building a royal chamber, a royal

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

and rebuilding the dilapidated

gatehouse A gatehouse is a type of fortified gateway, an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the mos ...

Ruin

Over the following two centuries, the castle passed to a succession of royal and

commoner A commoner, also known as the ''common man'', ''commoners'', the ''common people'' or the ''masses'', was in earlier use an ordinary person in a community or nation who did not have any significant social status, especially a member of neither ...

owners before falling into disrepair by 1580, where it was described as "utterly decayed, with no timber or stone remaining". In 1650 and 1728 the site was known as Castle Yard, and in the 1830s a tenant of Castle Close recovered over 2,000 yards of stone while digging up the foundations. By the 1970s the only feature visible on the site of the castle was a much-altered

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive ...

, fed by the stream which flows from Potterspury Lodge through Moor End to Potterspury village. Today, a wooded island surrounded by the moat is all that remains.

Sources

''A History of the County of Northamptonshire: Volume 5: The Hundred of Cleley (2002), pp. 289-345''
- Riden, Philip and Insley, Charles (eds), 2002 *''The Castles of the East Midlands (Malvern)'' - Salter, Mike, 2002 *''Greater Medieval Houses Vol2 (Cambridge), p183'' - Emery, Anthony, 2000 *''Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol2, p319'' - King, D.J.C., 1983 *''An inventory of the historical monuments in the County of Northampton. Vol4: South-west Northamptonshire (HMSO), p175'' - RCHME, 1982 *
The history of the King's Works Vol2: the Middle Ages
(London: HMSO) pp. 742-3'' - Colvin, H.M., Brown, R.Allen and Taylor, A.J., 1963 *''Some account of Domestic Architecture in England (Oxford) Vol3 pt2, p414'' - Turner, T. H. and Parker, J. H., 1859

References

{{coord, 52, 05, 41, N, 0, 54, 00, W, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Buildings and structures in Northamptonshire Castles in Northamptonshire History of Northamptonshire 1347 establishments in England 1500s disestablishments in England West Northamptonshire District