Whittington Castle. (Richard Lloyd.) Volume 4 Stanley Leighton Sketches
These ruins are three miles from Oswestry, on the way to Ellesmere. The overhanging trees, the reflecting water, and the clustering ivy, make up in picturesqueness, for a deficiency in architectural detail.
William Peverel is said to have built the Castle in 1138. In the time of King John. Fulk Fitzwarine of Alberbury, succeeded in establishing a claim, probably through the Peverels, to the Lordship, and from 1204 for two centuries the Fitzwarines lived here, and theirs is the name principally associated with Whittington.
On the failure of the heirs male of the Fitzwarines the estate passed to Richard Hankford, who married Elizabeth, sister of the last Fitzwarine: he died in 1430 leaving a daughter who married Sir William Bourchier created ‘jure uxoris’ Lord Fitzwarine.
Since 1420 the manor has passed to various owners, by royal grant, by purchase, by exchange, by marriage. In the reign of Elizabeth, William Albany, a London merchant, bought it from Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, and his great-grandaughter, having married Thomas Lloyd of Aston (who died in 1692) carried it into the possession of that family. with whom it still remains.
The Gothic window in the gatehouse is believed to have been moved from the neighbouring Church, which was rebuilt about 1809. The battlements of the Castle were restored at the same time.
The following extract is taken from the Parish book of Whittington, kept at the Rectory.
“1809. Whittington Castle repaired. Castle well opened in which were found, the handle of bucket, a large pair of iron fetters for the legs, a large jug,, the remains of stags horns, swords etc.”
