Easter Excursion Day 2 - Naworth Castle and Lanercost Priory

On September 10, 1649, a twenty-seven-year-old Anne Murray—known to us by her married name, Anne Halkett—left London for Naworth Castle, where she stayed nine months. Naworth Castle was then the home of the twenty-one-year-old Charles Howard and his wife and cousin Anne Howard, Halkett’s childhood friend. (How convenient not to have to change your last name when you get married!)

Charles Howard

According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (and Wikipedia), Charles Howard successfully tacked with the changing political winds of the tumultuous 17th century. He was brought up as a Catholic and sided with Charles I during the English civil war, but then “distinguished himself” in battle on Cromwell’s side and served in parliament during the interregnum. After the restoration of Charles II, he was knighted and appointed ambassador to Russia, and then governor of Jamaica. By the end of it all he had amassed a fortune large enough for his grandson to build the palatial Castle Howard.

Today the 14th-century Naworth Castle is still in the Howard family, serving as the residence of Philip Howard, the second son of the twelfth Earl of Carlisle.



This means, unfortunately, that it is not open to the public, unless you can afford a private guided tour. But since the castle is just down the road from where we were staying, we decided to get as close as possible on our return from Housestead's Roman Fort. Here are the castle's front gates, both ancient and modern:

Since we qualify as the "public," we continued down the lane (driveway?) past the castle, where I took another photo:

The castle website—still under construction after all these years—does have a few nice pictures of the interior.

We were looking for the public footpath that runs through the back of the Howard estate where we hoped to getting a better view, but the footpath we chanced upon once we located a "car park" took us along the other side of the River Irthing to the ruins of Lanercost Priory:

The Parish Church of St. Mary Magdalene:   

The vicar of the Priory Church is a shepherdess. I wonder, are these her sheep?

We decided against paying the fee to see the English Heritage section of the Priory ruins, and entered the restored part of the 12th-century church instead, where we were treated to the equivalent of a free guided tour.

In brief, the Parish Church of St. Mary Magdalene and adjoining Augustinian Priory were built in the 12th-13th centuries at least partly out of stones from Hadrian’s wall. (This is apparently common in Cumbria. Our “guide” explained that you can tell Hadrian’s wall stones both from the colour of the local stone and the size: they had to be small enough for Roman soldiers to carry one at a time.) King Edward I made the Priory his home in 1306-7 when he tried to conquer Scotland; in 1538 the Priory was dissolved by Henry the 8th, and both Church and Priory were mostly left in ruins. Unlike Leicester Abbey, these ruins survive, and unlike the rather thorough iconoclasts in our area, the Cumbrian reformers missed a statue:

In 1649, when Lady Halkett visited Naworth Castle, the local parish church met in the old church's north aisle. I am given to understand, however, that she most likely attended services in the Castle’s private chapel, which had its own Anglican chaplain at a time when the Anglican order of service was proscribed from use in local churches. For some reason, the list of Lanercost ministers has a gap between 1637 and 1651, so we don’t know who would have officiated if she did visit the old Priory.

The nave of the old church was re-roofed in the 18th century, and then beautifully restored in the 19th by George Howard, the 9th Early of Carlisle, and his Pre-Raphaelite friends, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. (I do regret not paying the requested £1 donation so that I could take pictures of the restored church’s beautiful interior, but you can sample Google’s offering here.)

Of greater interest to us at that moment was the walking map our guide produced, indicating the public footpath that might have afforded us a better view of Naworth Castle. Alas, by the time we had rested our feet by the old Lanercost bridge and helped rescue a wandering puppy ...

... there arose a protest against venturing any further.