Cockermouth Castle

Cockermouth Castle stands in the town of Cockermouth in the United Kingdom; it was erected by the Normans.

The first fortified work on the site was a motte built in 1134 by Norman builders. Early stonework in the castle draws on material taken from the nearby Roman settlement of Derventio, now known as Papcastle. Over the following centuries the site grew beyond the original earthwork mound as stone construction replaced or supplemented timber defences.

Major building phases occurred in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when substantial towers and domestic ranges were added, including the thirteenth-century bell tower and a fourteenth-century kitchen tower. In the fifteenth century the castle became entwined with national politics during the Wars of the Roses, and members of the Percy family, the Earls of Northumberland, were important owners from the fifteenth until the seventeenth century.

In the seventeenth century the castle sustained significant damage during the Civil War. Ownership later passed, in the eighteenth century, to the Wyndham family, who remain the owners today. The castle was the residence of the dowager Lady Egremont until her death in 2013. The site is legally protected as a Grade I listed building and as a scheduled monument. In 2008 the site appeared on the Heritage at Risk Register, which recorded that most of the fabric was in good repair while noting instability in the thirteenth-century bell tower and water penetration in the fourteenth-century kitchen tower. In December 2015 heavy rainfall and flooding triggered a landslide and removed part of the adjacent riverbank; Historic England recorded a clear risk to the castle, the riverbank was reinforced afterward, and no permanent repair scheme had been agreed by 2022. The castle has been opened to the public as part of the Heritage Open Days scheme.