Of course, there are castles, and castles. Small
castles at the business end of things, like Harbottle in Northumberland, only 5
kilometres from the border with Scotland, had few amenities. The name Hirbottle
was first recorded in the thirteenth century, and probably derives from the
Anglo-Saxon here-botl which means
‘army building.’ The castle towers over the major medieval highway into
Scotland - Clennell Street - making it a point of strategic as well as tactical
importance. The stone keep on the motte and the East and West bailey are
surrounded by a curtain wall, and it was very much a working front-line castle.
When Queen Margaret of Scotland gave birth to her daughter Meg Douglas here in
1515, there were hardly any women present to tend her.

The tower forms a Greek cross with four polygonal
wings radiating from the central block. (In simple terms, imagine a small
square surrounded by a larger square. Then visualise four small squares
projecting outwards, one from each of the four sides of the larger square.) It
was planned using a unit of measurement sometimes called a rod, a pole or a
perch – 16 feet six inches.
In 1471 Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, ordered
another re-organisation. Splendid porch towers were built over the hall and
great chamber, the one over the hall bearing the modern and ancient arms of the
family. The masons involved had also worked on York Minster. Work was
interrupted by the murder of the earl in 1489. It seems the earl’s decision not
to commit to the Battle of Bosworth until a winner had emerged so disgusted his
household that they abandoned him to a mob during a tax riot.
For more information and plans that show the
complexity of the building, try the website: Warkworth
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