Rory Walsh visits a Cheshire castle with ancient foundations
View • Rural • North West England • Web Guide
Beeston Castle is one of England’s most dramatic ruins. Its towers perch upon Beeston Crag, a steep wooded bluff that looms 155 metres above the surrounding fields of the Cheshire Plain. From a distance, the castle walls sit like a crown on a huge tree-covered head. At the castle itself, the views can span eight counties. To the east roll the Pennine Hills, while to the west stand the Welsh mountains.
Medieval records describe Beeston Castle as ‘Castellum de Rupe’, the Castle on the Rock. It was built in the 1220s for Ranulf de Blondeville, Sixth Earl of Chester. Beeston became a strategic royal stronghold until it was ‘slighted’ (damaged beyond repair) during the English Civil Wars. Rumours persist that, 250 years earlier, King Richard II hid treasure in Beeston’s grounds. Various searches, often focused on a 113-metre well, have been in vain.
A commanding hill surrounded by flat open land, Beeston Crag was an ideal military location. Ranulf de Blondeville wasn’t the first person to spot its potential. His castle utilised the earthen ramparts of an Iron Age hillfort. Burial mounds at the site have been dated to the Bronze Age, circa 800 BCE, while discoveries of Neolithic flint tools suggest that Beeston Crag was occupied at least 4,000 years ago.
These various settlements took advantage of geology. Beeston Crag is part of the Mid Cheshire Ridge, a 54-kilometre sandstone crest. Sandstone is a soft sedimentary rock. The ridge formed between 250 and 195 million years ago when layers of sand and pebbles were gradually laid down in desert-like conditions. Later tectonic activity in the Earth’s crust then pushed the compressed sandstone upwards.
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The ridge is often called ‘the backbone of Cheshire’. Fittingly so, as it’s a segmented line of hills rather than a single landform. During the ice ages, it created a temporary barrier against Irish Sea glaciers. Glacial meltwater eventually breached and then carved through the rock, including the flat expanse of Beeston Gap. Millennia of wind and water further eroded the sandstone into a series of peaks.
Today, Beeston Castle is managed by English Heritage. Visitors can enjoy spectacular views, explore the nearby woods and visit a recreated Iron Age roundhouse. Beeston isn’t alone. The remains of six hillforts and four castles sprinkle the Mid Cheshire Ridge. While castles built on sand can’t last, those built on Cheshire sandstone provide enduring and fascinating glimpses of earlier human life.
