Red Castle

Heritage listing

Details PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS The monument includes the standing structural, earthwork and buried remains of Red Castle, an enclosure castle, situated within Hawkstone Park. The castle is a Listed Building Grade II, and Hawkstone Park is a Registered Historic Park and Garden Grade I. DESCRIPTION Red Castle occupies two parallel, steep-sided, narrow sandstone ridges and the lower ground between them, which rises gradually from south to north. From the northern ends of the sandstone ridges there are commanding views of the north Shropshire plain and the hills of the Welsh borderland beyond. Red Castle is situated 820m to the north east of a motte castle, known as The Mount, which is the subject of a separate scheduling. The overall extent of Red Castle is approximately 1.9ha. Its rectangular plan largely reflects the area defined by the sandstone ridges to the east and west. These prominent land forms, with their cliffs and precipitous slopes, would have acted as formidable defensive barriers, and led to creation of four defended areas, or wards. The largest ward is to the south and is separated from the three wards to the north by a deep east-west rock-cut ditch, up to 12m wide. The small north western and north eastern wards occupy the high ground of the two ridges. Access into the castle was from the lower ground to south. The approach is defined by the discontinuous southerly extent of the two ridges. This area is not included in the scheduling, with the exception of part of the western ridge where the bedrock has been cut to form a building platform, which probably formed an outer element of the castle's defence. Entrance into the castle was via a causeway, 4m wide, defined on either side by a rock-cut ditch, partly revetted with sandstone block walling. The western par

From the Historic England List Entry under OGL v3.