Liddel Strength is an ancient monument near Carwinley, Cumbria, in northwest England. It consists of the earthwork remains of an Anglo-Norman border fortification (the seat of the barony of Liddel) destroyed by the Scots in 1346 (a wooden motte and bailey castle at the time of its destruction; possibly earlier a ringwork) and fragmentary remains of a pele tower subsequently built upon the site. It lies on a cliff on the south bank of the Liddel Water, overlooking the Liddel Water's confluence with the River Esk; the last high ground before the Esk reaches the Solway Plain. The Liddel Water (upstream of the confluence) and the Esk (downstream) form the modern Anglo-Scottish border; formerly they were the southern boundary of the Debatable Lands.
Other names and potential misidentification It has also been known as Liddel Moat (and has given its name to Moat Quarter (in which it lies) of Kirkandrews-on-Esk parish) and the castle is referred to in mediaeval documents as the Peel of Liddell or the castle of Liddel. However, it is not the same as - although sometimes (understandably) confused with - Liddel Castle (also known as Liddel Motte) (much further up Liddesdale at Castleton beyond the modern Newcastleton (also known as Copshaw Holm).. Unfortunately, "Bain"(Calendar of Documents) has one index heading covering both Liddel and Liddesdale. A notable victim is which conflates the two by putting Castleton at the confluence of Esk and Liddel Water Liddel Strength was the seat of the barony of Liddel (on the English side of the current border); there was also a barony of Liddesdale (on the Scots side of the current border), whose seat was originally the Liddel Castle in Upper Liddesdale (built and held by the De Soules), later superseded by Hermitage Castle (occasionally referred to as the strength of Liddesdale); at his death in 1300, John Wake held both baronies from the King of England, but they were his lands of Liddel and the Hermitage.Cal. Doc.Scotland, ii. 1154 ie document 1154 (p299) of The border was not stable in the Middle Ages, and both castles have been in the other country at some point. As a further complication, Canonbie, immediately upstream of Liddel Strength, takes its name from a canonry originally known as the religious house of Liddel; Canonbie church being sometimes referred to in the Middle Ages as the church of Liddel.The canonry was founded in the reign of David I of Scotland by Turgot de Rossedale; in 1167 Guido de Rossedale with the assent of his son Rodolph gave '42 acres between Esk and Liddel, where they meet' - this and article text from :
Postulated pre-Conquest significance A Roman road ran up Eskdale east of the river, and passed just to the east of the site of Liddel Strength.Long suspected/claimed because of the existence of Roman forts at Netherby and Broomholm; see . Subsequently reports that its agger shows clearly in lidar data for the vicinity of Liddell Strength It was suggested by William Forbes Skene in the 19th century -the identification was originally made in the less accessible that 'Carwinley' is a corruption of Caer Wenddolau or Gwenddolau's Fort and that the impressive ditch and rampart significantly pre-date the castle and protected a stronghold of Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio, a Celtic ruler defeated and killed at the Battle of Arfderydd in 573, which in this interpretation took place at Arthuret - 'Arturethe' in medieval documents.e.g. Cal. Doc.Scotland, iii. 974 ie document 974 (p 176) in A 15th-century manuscript in the British Library (MS Cotton Titus A XIX) contains the tale of 'Lailoken and Kentigern' in which St Kentigern meets a naked, hairy, madman (Lailoken - probably the original name of Merlin) - driven mad by a terrible battle fought upon the plain that lay between Liddel and Carwannock. - various websites attribute a similar statement on location of the battle to John of Fordun without any more specific reference - however Sir Walter Scott in the notes to 'Thomas the Rhymer' in his Poetical Works offers Scotichronicon iii c31 in which - says Scott - there is an interview between St Kentigern and Merlin, then going under the name of Lailoken... Skene's 1872 edition of Scotichronicon (which he purged of anything he considered to be a later interpolation) does not appear to mention Ardderyd (or anything like it), still less its location and his Book III Chapter 31 is Saint Columba's prophecy about the sons of Aydanus—His Death —Saint Drostan and his Parentage. The identification from correspondence of placenames is far from certain - whilst Skene's equation of Ardderyd with Arthuret is now generally acceptedaccording to Arthuret parish contains (within a mile of Carwinley) another candidate for Caer Wenddolau - the Roman fort of Castra Exploratorum "a fort and substantial settlement existed here, probably with a port on the River Esk, since silted up. ... Stukeley saw Roman remains, which he took to be a fort, all round the house, and he, Gale and Goodman describe the settlement as extending north-west from the fort towards the river, with several streets, on one of which a bath-house was discovered in 1732. Leland saw the "ruinous walls of marvellous buildings", and was told of rings and staples set in walls as if for the mooring of ships, whilst the early editions of Camden refer to the "wonderful and large ruins of an ancient city". Stukeley saw a cemetery down the hill from the house, but does not say on which side it lay. ... The latest direct dating evidence is a coin of Gordian (238-244 AD), but it is reasonable to suppose that occupation continued well into the 4th century, as with the other four outpost forts of the Caracallan system." whose remains impressed early antiquarians but were invisible to Skene, having been obliterated by Netherby Hall. (At a meeting of the Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Society held at the site in 1926 a paper read by R W Collingwood, dismissed any possibility that the Strength 'long ... an object of antiquarian interest, not always well-informed.' was pre-Conquest.)
Barony of Liddel The barony of Liddel had an extent roughly that of the modern parishes of Arthuret, Kirkandrews-on-Esk and Nicholforest. It is thought to have been created by Ranulf le Meschin, 3rd Earl of Chester in or before the first decade of the 12th century and given by him to Turgis Brandos, descending by his son William Brandos (probably also known as William of Rosedale) to Turgis/Turgot de Rossedale (Rosedale in Yorkshire). However 'Benedict of Peterborough' reports that in 1174, whilst besieging Carlisle William the Lion ...went in person with the remaining part of his army through Northumbria, wasting the lands of the king and of his barons; and took with his arms the castle of Liddell, which belonged to Nicholas de Estuteville ...Gesta Henrici II excerpted in It is not clear how Nicholas de Stuteville had supplanted the de Rosedales,he got all their lands; both Liddel and Rosedale - Early Yorkshire Charters op. cit, but he was well connected; the second son of a High Sheriff of Yorkshire and his grandfather had been one of the Yorkshire magnates present at the Battle of the Standard. Henry II seems to have favoured the family; two of the other castles taken by William were the responsibility of Stutevilles;'Benedict' op cit continues ".. and the castle of Brough, and the castle of Appleby, the king's castles which Robert de Estuteville kept; and the castle of Warkworth, which Roger son of Richard kept; and the castle of Harbottle, which Odenel de Umfraville held" a Stuteville was in the party of knights that captured William at Alnwick later in 1174, and Henry installed Stutevilles as castellans in two of the castles William surrendered to Henry.Lewis, C.P. (2006) Anglo-norman Studies 28: Proceedings ... Boydell Press (via Google) Although Nicholas's branch of the Stutevilles were Barons of Liddell, Liddel was never their principal seat; that lay at Cottingham in the East Riding of Yorkshire where in 1200 they entertained King John, and were granted a licence to fortify and moat their manor house in 1201.
The Stuteville estates passed by marriage into the le Wake family (whose principal seat was at Bourne, Lincolnshire), and in 1346 the castle belonged to the noble baron Sir Thomas Wake, lord of Liddel as he was described by the Lanercost Chronicle in its account of an English incursion into Scotland (intended to be major, but restricted to a 12-day raid by bad weather p306 :Lanercost Priory - where the Chronicle was written - is less than 20 miles from Liddell Strength and was plundered by the Scots soon after the fall of Liddel Strength; the Chronicle thus gives virtually on-the-spot reporting (most other chroniclers are unclear on the geography of the Borders, Lanercost gives the name of the farmstead at which the Scots hit Tynedale) but as Sir Herbert notes ("The chronicler refrains from attributing the floods to the direct interposition of the Almighty in favour of the Scots, as undoubtedly he would have done if a Scottish invasion of England had been cut short in like manner.") is far from impartial) he led in 1337. Wake was one of 'the Disinherited' (those who had lost their Scottish holdings as a result of the battle of Bannockburn) and fought at Dupplin Moor. Wake and his sister Margaret had both married Plantagenets; he was the son-in-law of Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster, she (having first married a son of the Comyn slain by Robert the Bruce, only to be widowed when he was killed at Bannockburn) had married - and was now the widow of - Edmund of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Kent, by whom she was mother of the 'Fair Maid of Kent' (although Margaret did not live long enough to be mother-in-law to the Black Prince).
Castle A fortification of some sort would have been needed from the earliest stage of the barony and a grant of land to Canonby priory in 1165 by Guy de Rossedale carries with it the rights to fishing on the Liddel from the 'foss' of Liddel up to the church. The first definite mention of a castle is in Benedict of Peterborough (noted above.) Its name is potentially misleading; it was certainly more than the fortified towerhouse which most surviving peles are, but even when first built - and certainly by the standards of the mid 14th century - a motte-and-bailey with a wooden palisade was not a particularly strong castle (it has been suggested that 'Strength' translates the Latin fortalitium more usually rendered as fortalice, meaning a small (or second-rate) fort). - who argues peel to have originally been a fortified enclosure The earthworks consist of a motte in an inner bailey with a weaker outer bailey attached. The inner bailey earthworks are massive (about 48m by 58m with an 8m rise from the bottom of the ditch to the top of the surviving bank) but form only a semi-circle, the 150-ft steep drop to the river being relied upon on the north side. The fortifications enclose an area of 3.5 - 4 acres (c 1.5 hectare). There is no ditch between the motte and the inner bailey, supporting the theory that the motte was back-fitted to a previously constructed ringwork. In the 1280s the castle is known From documents relating to the royal wardship of Thomas Wake: "Calendarium Inquisitionum post mortem, i. 74–5, which gives the Wake lands at Baldwin's death in 1282" says ). to have had a timber hall with two solars and cellars, with associated ancillary buildings (kitchen, granary, byre, grange and chapel) presumably also timber, with some buildings in bad repair. In 1300 an indenture was entered into for 'repairing the mote and the fosses around; strengthening and re-dressing the same and the pele and the palisades, and making lodges within the mote, if necessary, for the safety of the men at arms of the garrison.' Neilson op cit p14, the quote being (correctly) referenced by him to Bain ii. 1173 ie document 1173 (p299) of