Wisbech Castle


The Castle at Wisbech was a stone motte-and-bailey castle built to fortify Wisbech on the orders of William I in 1072, it probably replaced an earlier timber and turf complex. The layout was probably oval in shape and size, on the line still marked by the Circus. The original design and layout is unknown.
It was rebuilt in stone in 1087.
The castle was reputedly destroyed in a flood in 1236.
In the 15th century, repairs were becoming too much for the ageing structure, and a new building was started in 1478 under John Morton, Bishop of Ely. His successor, John Alcock, extended and completed the re-building and died in the Castle in 1500. Subsequent bishops also spent considerable sums on this new palace. The Bishop's Palace was built of brick with dressings of Ketton Stone, but its exact location is unknown.
In later Tudor times, the rebuilt castle became a notorious prison. The site was again redeveloped in the mid-17th century and yet again in 1816 by Joseph Medworth. A 1794 plan of the 'castle' exists; this only shows the 'castle' as it existed at the end of the 18th century, prior to the development of the site to its current form.
The Regency building known as The Castle, Museum Square, Wisbech PE13 3ES was given Grade II* listed status on 31 October 1983 following the vaults Grade II listed in 1969. It now stands in the middle of a circus.

History

Middle Ages

The Domesday Book of 1086 makes no mention of a castle at Wisbech.
King John travelled from Lynn to Lincolnshire via Wisbech, and stayed at the castle on 12 October 1216. His baggage train is reported to have got into difficulties crossing a river or estuary and the wagons and contents, including the regalia and other treasures, were lost. In recent years, treasure seekers have tried to find the location of this incident and the lost treasures.
The castle and town of Wisbech were swept away in a storm in 1236, although the castle appears to have soon been rebuilt as a keeper or Constable is named in 1246.
King Edward II of England visited the castle in 1292, 1298, 1300 and 1305.
In 1315, Richard Lambert of King's Lynn, a merchant, brought an action against William le Blowere and others for a conspiracy to imprison him. He had been "thrown in the depth of the gaol of Wysebech among thieves, where by toads and other venomous vermin he was so inhumanely gnawed that his life was despaired of".
The castle tower was repaired during 1332–1333 using six fotmel of lead, and a year later the bakehouse wall was buttressed using 6,000 bricks.
In 1350, John de Walton was lodged in the castle accused of trespass and rebellion. In the same year the Bishop's Constable and his men were "besieged" by John de Stonore, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench.
There were several fisheries belonging to the manor of Wisbech alone. In the 1350s the reeves of Walton and Leverington each sent a porpoise to Wisbech Castle, and the reeve of Terrington a swordfish.
In 1355, a licence was issued to John Boton, vicar of Wysebeche, to marry Hugh Lovet of Lincoln, the bishop's domicellus, and Jane de Pateshalle in the chapel of the Castle of Wysebech.
In 1409, a new Floud Gate and a new water gate were erected and a new pons tractabilis built towards the church. Constructions in 1410 included a new pons tractabilis towards the church, a chapel within and a bridge without the castle, and a garden and dove house, all walled around and moated.
In 1410, John Colvile was the governor or constable. A steel seal used by him has a representation of a castle in the form of a fortress, with circular keep. A wax copy may be seen in Wisbech & Fenland Museum.
In 1414, Dominus Heyle and several prisoners taken by the Earl of Dorchester were kept here by permission of bishop John Fordham.
In 1443, the houses and chambers called Le Dungeon are allotted to the Constable.
During 1478–83, the Bishop's Palace in Wisbech was constructed of bricks measuring 11 inches in length and 2.5 inches thick with a dressing of Ketton stone. The property's cellars and foundations can still be seen. The palace was extended by Bishop Alcock.

16th century

Wisbech was used as a prison in part due to its remote location. It took prisoners under escort three days to walk between Wisbech and London.
During Queen Mary's restoration of Roman Catholicism, Protestants were imprisoned at Wisbech. William Wolsey and Robert Piggott were imprisoned but then removed and later burnt at the stake.
In 1577 Cecilia Samuel was tried, convicted and hanged at Ely for drowning her newborn son in the ditch called the Castell dike in Wisbech.
In 1580 the bishop was enjoined to put the castle "in order and strength" to receive prisoners, and the first were received in October. In October 1580 Roger Goad, Bridgewater and William Fulke engaged in the examination of John Bourne, a glover and some others of the Family of Love who were confined in the castle.
In 1583 a prisoner, Andrew Oxenbridge, is recorded as taking the oath of supremacy.
In 1584 John Feckenham died in the castle. Imprisoned in the Tower of London during the reign of Edward VI, he was made Abbot of Westminster by Mary Tudor but sent back to the Tower by Elizabeth I. While a prisoner in Wisbech he is said to have paid for a market cross to be erected. Later it was changed to an obelisk, but it was removed in April 1811.
During the reign of Elizabeth I while the seat of the bishopric was left vacant, the Queen's halmote court to dealt with cases such as the surrender of land at "Stowecroft", "Sybbilsholme", "Harecrofte" by Jacomina Robinson to her son John Crosse in July 1586.
Other leading Roman Catholics were imprisoned for political reasons at the time of the Spanish Armada: Robert Catesby and Francis Tresham are reported to have been held at Wisbeach Castle in 1588. Later they were principal conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot.
In the last years of the 16th century there were 33 Catholics held prisoner in Wisbech Castle, almost all of them priests, including the Jesuit priests Christopher Holywood and William Weston, and lay brother Thomas Pounde. A quarrel arose among them that came to be known as the "Wisbech Stirs". In the winter of 1594-95 a substantial group wished to separate themselves from the rest and adopt a regular communal life. This was largely impossible without appearing to castigate those who did not want to make this change and on account of the limited space. The unwilling minority argued, which only confirmed the others in their resolve, and the separation was carried out in February 1595, but came to an end with a general reconciliation in November of that same year. Philip Strangeways was one of the missionary priests imprisoned at Wisbech at the end of Elizabeth's reign.
Francis Young's research indicates that there were at least 111 prisoners.

17th century

John and Robert Nutter were brothers, born in Burnley. After university, both studied at the English College in Rheims before being ordained. Soon after returning to England to minister to recusant communities, they were captured and sent to the Tower of London. Robert was tortured before being forced to see his brother being hanged, drawn and quartered. Robert was eventually released and transported to France, but recaptured on his return to England and sent to Newgate, the Marshalsea and thence to Wisbech Castle. After escaping from the castle and recapture, he was martyred at Lancaster in July 1600. A fellow prisoner in Wisbech Castle was Antony Champney.
William Chester was Constable from 1605 until his death in the castle in 1608; he was buried in St Peter's churchyard.
There is a memorial to Matthias Taylor, Constable of the Castle in the Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul, Wisbech. Eight Jesuits escaped custody during his tenure: three in 1614 and five in 1615. His monument states that three sons, five daughters and 22 grandchildren survived him.
In 1616, a priest, Thomas Tunstal, escaped from the castle to Norfolk. Hamon L'Estrange had him pursued and apprehended. He was tried at Norwich and condemned and executed. The use of the castle for recusant prisoners ceased in 1627.
During the English Civil War, after Oliver Cromwell had been appointed governor of the Isle of Ely for his activity in swaying it to the interest of Parliament, he refortified the castle and town with outposts at the Horseshoe Sluice and Leverington. The soldiers stationed to defend the town were commanded by Colonel John Palgrave and Captain William Dodson; and the ammunition, and other warlike stores, were supplied from a Dutch ship, which the Queen had dispatched from Holland for the use of the Royalists, but which had been captured. In 1643 the castle was used to secure the river Nene frontier and to block any attempt by the Newark garrison to relieve the besieged King's Lynn Royalists. The castle was armed with cannon "Great Guns" from Ely and money from the town paid for ironwork to repair the drawbridge. The garrison at Wisbech was commanded by Col Dodson and carried out skirmishing in the surrounding Fenland. The naval blockade, siege and bombardment brought capitulation from King's Lynn after three weeks. Peterborough was occupied by the Parliamentarians before the capture of Crowland.
Captain Thomas Pigge of Walsoken was taken prisoner by the Earl of Essex in October 1634 and exchanged at Burghley House "on a bond of £2,000 never to bear arms again".
Secretary of State John Thurloe, of Lincoln's Inn, Middlesex, purchased the manors of Wisbech Barton, Elm and Todd St. Giles and the "castle estate". He sold off some property, demolished the bishop's palace, and then built and furnished a mansion, aka Thurloe's mansion. Shortly afterwards, during the Restoration of the Monarchy, his house and estates in Wisbech were repossessed by the Bishop of Ely. Jonas Moore's "Mapp of the Great Levell of the Fens" shows the town with a church and a large building surrounded by a moat, Thurloe's coat of arms is one of those nearby. William Dugdale noted that a lock at the Horseshoe erected in an earlier phase of the drainage work, which "cost £7000 at least" had since been "pulled down, as useless, and is disposed of to Mr. Secretary Thurloe, towards his building of that fair new house in Wisbech, which stands where the old Castle was". Thurloe also built a property nearby for his sons.
The demolition of the bishop's palace and construction of Thurloe's mansion did not end the imprisonment for religious beliefs in Wisbech. In 1663 John Inds late of Ely, was taken with several other Friends from a peaceable meeting on 16 February, and sent to Wisbech Gaol, where he was kept prisoner for three years.
In 1664 Matthew Wren, Lord Bishop of Ely, was liable for 24 hearths. In 1662 it had been 25, one later being pulled down.
Henry Pierson, born in Wisbech, was the first post-Restoration tenant to lease the castle from the Bishop of Ely.
The Southwell family were tenants for over 100 years.