Rochdale Castle.

There used to be a castle in Rochdale!, well there was way back in the 11th century, but by the early 13th century it had been abandoned. It's possible there was an earlier, Saxon settlement, on what is now Castle Hill. The motte and bailey castle had stood on a raised, steep-sided area of land at the south side of the River Roch, to the west of Rochdale town centre at SD 89164 12851. The area around Castle Hill is also known as Castleton - which means 'Castle by a farmstead or settlement' - and is a post-Conquest place-name.

A motte-and-bailey castle is a fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a mound called a motte, which may have had a walled courtyard on one side, or a bailey; this in turn was surrounded by a defensive ditch and a wooden palisade. This raised, tree-covered area of land, above Manchester Road, is called Castle Hill, and on its summit where the Medieval fortification used to be there is a large 19th century house with a Georgian facade; an earlier building from the early 1600s had also stood on this site. Henry Fishwick's plan (above) from 1823 clearly shows the steep-sided defensive ramparts and layout of Castle Hill.

Before and after the Norman Conquest of 1066 the Saxon thegn, Gamel, Lord of the manor of Recedham, may have occupied the castle above the river Roch; he also built the church of St Chad. Gamel was the father of Orm. At the time of the Domesday Book (1086) Gamel owned land in the north-west of England including Rachedal. He was one of the 21 men in the Saxon Salford Hundred area, of which Rochdale was a part. The Domesday Book goes on to tell us that Gamel retained two carucates of land in Rachedal in 1086. Gamel also owned the manors of Heywood and Radcliffe.

There is nothing left of Rochdale's Medieval Castle today. However, at Castle Hill some of the earthworks of the steep-sided defensive banks or ramparts can still be seen, especially at the north side, north-west side, north-east, south-west and western sides, some of which are still quite extent; the bank at the south-eastern side now much denuded and lost to the road layout (Manchester Road), as well as a row of houses which were demolished, and the driveway upto the house. There are no traces of the motte-and-bailey castle on the top of Castle Hill - the site being occupied by the house and other buildings - as well as more recent features such as the new housing estate called Castle Hill Crescent. There used to be a church at the far south-western side of the hill but this has gone.

Long after the death of Gamel in the early 13th century, just before the year 1212, King Henry II granted the manor of Rachedam (Rochdale) to Roger de Lacy whose family retained it as part of the Honour of Clitheroe until it passed to the Dukes of Lancaster by marriage and then by 1399 to the Crown, according to the Wikipedia website. Whether Rochdale Castle was ever re-occupied at a later time is not known.

Sources & Related Websites:-

https://lancashirepast.com/2020/02/22/rochdales-lost-castle/

http://gatehouse-gazetteer.info/English%20sites/3023.html

https://www.pastscape.org.uk/hob.aspx?hob_id=45159#:~:text=The%20motte%20and%20bailey,%20built%20in%20the%20early,from%20North-South%20by%20100%20feet%20East%20to%20West.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_Castle

https://rays57-aroundbamford.blogspot.com/2018/01/around-st-chads-church-rochdale.html

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