Conisbrough Castle
Local highlightA rare cylindrical white keep above the Don in South Yorkshire, its striking tower said to have set Walter Scott dreaming up Ivanhoe
Open to visitorsan English Heritage site — check opening times and admission before you go
Substantial ruinsruined, but plenty survives above ground
People come to Conisbrough for the keep — a tall cylinder of pale magnesian limestone, propped by six great wedge-shaped buttresses, and there’s nothing quite like it in England. Hamelin de Warenne, a half-brother of Henry II, raised it in the 1180s, when tall round keeps were the newest idea in castle design. Below it, the curtain wall (the outer wall ringing the courtyard) and the bailey (the walled courtyard inside) have worn down to stumps, but the tower stands close to full height, and you can climb up inside to a little chapel tucked into one of the buttresses. Walter Scott used the castle as the model for the fictional Coningsburgh in his novel Ivanhoe, which is why the name gets recognised well beyond Yorkshire. English Heritage looks after the site, on a hill above the town with the Sheffield & South Yorkshire Navigation in the valley below. Roche Abbey and Brodsworth Hall are both a short drive off if you want to make a day of it.
More at the National Heritage List entry
