Beeston Castle - Tarporley, Cheshire (EH)
The thirteenth century ruin of Beeston Castle is located on a rocky summit 500ft above the Cheshire plain with views of the Pennines in the east and the Welsh mountains in the west.
The visible fortifications date from 1225 when a castle was built on Beeston crag by Ranulf de Blundeville (1170-1232), the sixth Earl of Chester, based on new castle-building methods he had gleaned from his travels in the Middle East during the Crusades.
Remains of early settlements dating back to 800BC have been discovered on this site.
Beeston Castle's design was very innovative. For the first time a castle's strength did not centre on its keep, as Beeston has none, but on its imposing wall towers and powerful gatehouses.It was while in Egypt for two years that Ranulf heard of castles in Syria and the Holy Land with sophisticated defences of hill-top sites and vast rock-cut ditches.
The site and construction of Beeston bears strong resemblance to the Crusader castle of Sahyoun in Syria with particular similarities seen in its the rock-cut defences.
Ranulf died in 1232 before the castle's completion and although ownership passed to his son John, he too died five years later with the castle still incomplete. Most of the defences had been built but the residential parts were never to be added.
With no male heir, Beeston, together with the earldom of Chester passed to the Crown under King Henry III (1216-72). Henry used the castle as a base to assemble troops and store supplies for his Welsh campaigns. As Beeston was not required as a residence no attempt was made to equip it with permanent kitchens, halls or chambers, so it is likely that timber buildings would have been constructed within the outer bailey to house the troops and supplies.
In 1254 Beeston passed to Henry's son Edward, the future King Edward I. Following Edward's coronation in 1272 the conquest of Wales was quickly completed and although the Cheshire Castles lost some of their importance, Beeston remained in good repair until the end of the fourteenth century. Thereafter it fell into gradual decline until, during the sixteenth century, being of no further use to the Crown, it was acquired by a local landowner, Sir Hugh Beeston of Beeston Hall. Sir Hugh used the castle and its lands for farming and to house poorer members of his family.
In 1642 with the outbreak of the Civil War military fortifications were once again in high demand and Beeston Castle was hastily re-commissioned. During the War, Beeston fell first to the Parliamentarians and then the Royalists and then with the surrender of Chester in February 1646, orders were given for Beeston's defences to be destroyed. This 'slighting' of Beeston was all the more thorough by the victorious Parliamentarians due to their earlier humiliating defeat at the castle, when a party of only eight Royalists managed to scale the north wall and obtain a surrender from the Parliamentarians within.