Tickhill Castle is in the private ownership of the Duchy of Lancaster and is rarely open to the public (currently, one Sunday a year). It is a motte and bailey castle, with the gateway/gatehouse on the perimeter bank and wall. From public roads the outer walls of the gatehouse, which faces W, are visible, and from the S, part of the curtain walling.

Apart from some lengths of the perimeter wall of uncertain date, the gatehouse is the only Romanesque stonework standing at the castle. It is a rectangular block with a round-arched passage through the centre. The outer gateway is reached by a bridge over the moat, which is still water-filled, and through a walled passage (barbican). At the inner end, the passage opens into a large bailey with the motte on the far side. At the sides of the gatehouse and butting onto it, on the outside there is an earth rampart topped by the stone wall, while inside the stone wall rises sheer from the bailey.

Romanesque sculpture is applied to the W wall of the gatehouse, facing incoming traffic; there are four false gables and the remains of seven figures.

The name Tickhill is not mentioned in the Domesday Book, but the place is probably covered by the entry for Dadesley; this place is mentioned with Stainton and Elgebi in Thompson and Clay 1943, 89n. A motte and bailey castle was in existence by 1102; a stone-built keep or donjon was built 1178-9. The castle was besieged in 1322, but not taken; it was dismantled by order of parliament in 1646. The town of Tickhill, with its market and a new church, was designed near to the castle, replacing Dadsley which seems to have been a little to the north. The two centres of the honour, Tickhill and Blyth, were separated by ‘a swamp’ (Hey 2005, 87, 109).

Roger de Busli held part of Dadesley Manor and had a castle at Blyth, later fortified by Robert of Bellême in 1101; the name Blyth was probably used as that of the nearest known town of importance. The castle was besieged and captured in 1101 by royal forces, and was later taken and kept by Henry II, who authorised expenditure on the keep and a stone bridge. King John spent heavily on the castle, including the construction of a barbican, although the present barbican is probably 15thc During the Civil War it was garrisoned for the King and surrendered in 1646. (History taken from English Heritage, National Monuments Record, online)

The royal free chapel in Tickhill castle was founded by Eleanor wife of Henry II. According to Hunter the chapel of Blyth had an equivalent meaning as the chapel within Tickhill castle; it was in the hands of canons of Rouen cathedral until the late 13thc (Clay 1959, 148-9).

General features

For a view of motte, bailey, and walls wide enough to include church, houses, watermill and windmill, see Vetusta Monumenta, Society of Antiquaries (1739).

Hunter, 1828, I, 232, gives long descriptions of castle and chapel, also views of gateway from inside and outside.

The medieval motte and bailey castle with surrounding moat, curtain wall, gatehouse and other structures, is visible as earthworks and structures on air photographs (Brown 1989, 215).

A. H. Thompson, in ‘The Castles of Yorkshire’ in Fallow 1909, has a drawing of Tickhill Castle from Duchy of Lancaster maps and plans no.115.

‘A square gatehouse of ashlar with diapered triangular panels above the string-course on the outer side. The round-headed arches are of two square orders carried down the jambs without imposts. A round-headed arch springing from imposts is incorporated in the later house within.’ (Renn 1973, 323)

Brown (1989, 216) remarks that the gatehouse is of the early two-storeyed rectangular type, with diapered triangular panels with figures. He says the gatehouse and the curtain wall are attributed to Henry I on no very strong evidence, and may be earlier.

Compare the late 12thc gatehouse at Kirkstall Abbey (report 11): there is no separate passage for pedestrians at Tickhill. The gates of York are sometimes said to be in origin 12thc constructions, and they have a series of plain and square round-headed arches (the stone walls came later). The inner gateway facing the bailey might be compared with the gateway seen in the inner courtyard at Skipton Castle.

Sculpture

The form of the pattern of flat crosses used in the gables resembles the pattern on the chamfer of the S impost at Armthorpe church (West Riding).

Figures B and G could represent watchmen of the castle guard; a corbel probably showing two men holding spears is on the nave N wall (now interior) at (Old) Edlington.

Malcolm Thurlby notes two heads near the top of an E wall of Monmouth castle (1999, 130, 131 with illus.). The website http://www.sheelanagig.org/sheela/tickhill.htm notes examples of Sheela-na-gigs at churches of Kilpeck and Bredwardine, and associated with their castles. Eamonn Kelly mentions sheela-na-gigs used on castles and town walls at a slightly later period in Ireland (Kelly 2006, 131, 133). There is an exhibitionist corbel reset in the chancel of the church at Hayton, East Riding. At Austerfield, there is a later 12thc sheela on a capital of the N arcade; the head is defaced. The function of exhibitionists in the context of a church has not been fully explained.

The website http://www.sheelanagig.org/sheela/tickhill.htm has good pictures of some of the figures (accessed 17^th August 2010). Figures C and E are discussed there as a male exhibitionist and a sheela.