Wingfield Manor

Construction of the manor began in 1439 for Treasurer to Henry VI, Sir Ralph Cromwell, though the building was not completed until after his death when John Talbot, the second Earl of Shrewsbury, bought the property. His family maintained the manor within the property for nearly two hundred years. After which, Parliament decreed that the manor be dismantled and allowed to fall into ruin, and parts were taken for building materials, leaving behind the present ruins.

At the time of the English Civil War (1642–48), the manor was in the hands of Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, a Parliament supporter. The manor was taken by the Royalists in 1643 and then, after a short siege (albeit interrupted by the Battle of Marston Moor), retaken by Parliament in August 1644, after several large siege engines had destroyed part of the western curtain wall. Wingfield Manor located in what was then a strategic position near a main north-south artery of the country and also a key east-west link at the southern end of the Pennines. It was partially demolished at the end of the Civil War on instructions from Parliament in order that it could never be used again for…