Stokesay Castle: “One of the best-preserved medieval fortified manor houses in England” (according to historian Henry Summerson).
It was built in the late 13th century by Laurence of Ludlow, a prosperous English wool merchant. Designed as a prestigious, comfortable, but secure, home, English Heritage has preserved these medieval buildings – virtually unchanged since they were built – and kept them mainly untouched by modern furnishings.
Stokesay is mentioned in the Doomsday book and takes its name from the Old English “’stoc’ meaning a place or enclosure, or stoches, meaning cattle farm, and the Norman family name ‘Say’, the surname of the de Says family who had held the land from the beginning of the 12th century.
The castle consists of a stone hall and solar block protected by two stone towers and is surrounded by a moat, now colonised with wild flowers. Entrance to the courtyard is via a stunning 17th century timber and plaster gatehouse next to where the café is situated.
Standing on the staircase in this spacious hall, sheltered beneath the magnificent 13th century timbered roof, you can imagine Laurence and his family sitting at the high table at one end of the room with the rest of the household placed at tables running along the length of the hall.
Go back in time and you can envisage the fire burning in the hearth in the middle of the floor and hear the echoes of voices deep in conversation, feel the hall alive with music and busy with the comings and goings of servants fetching wine and beer from the buttery on the lower floor.
Now the hall is cold and silent, lit by sunlight filtering through the tall Gothic windows, no fire burns in the bricked up hearth and the voices of past Sheriffs of Shropshire drinking from pewter tankards, toasting ladies in long-sleeved silk gowns are long-ago echoes of ages past. But: “Even in its emptiness, the hall at Stokesay is one of the most evocative rooms in England” http://englishbuildings.blogspot.co.uk
published in the June edition of The Gossip magazine