On this day, 376 years ago, after a short siege, Sheffield Castle was surrendered to the Parliamentarian army by Royalists, and its fate was sealed.
On August 11th, 1644, Major Thomas Beaumont handed the castle over to Major-General Crawford and Colonel Pickering of the Parliamentary army.
“The Castle, with all the fire-arms, ordnance, and ammunition, all their furniture of war, and all their provisions, to be delivered to Major-General Crawford, by three o’clock in the afternoon, being the 11th of this instant August, without any diminution or embezzlement.”
The castle was founded in the late 11th or early 12th century, possibly by Roger de Busli, at the confluence of the rivers Don and Sheaf. The castle became one of the largest and most important in the north of England and was rebuilt and developed by the de Lovetots through the 12th century and by the Furnivals in the 13th. By the 15th century, the castle had passed to the Earls of Shrewsbury and subsequently to the Dukes of Norfolk.
Two years after the surrender, on 30 April 1646, the House of Commons passed a resolution that Sheffield Castle should be made untenable, and on 13 July 1647 a resolution was passed for the castle to be demolished.
Despite considerable demolition work, in 1649 the Earl of Arundel (a title of the Duke of Norfolk) repurchased Sheffield Castle with the intention of restoring it, but the damage was too severe, and was completely razed; for a while it was used as an orchard, and then a bowling green, before being built over.
Following the demolition of Castle Market, the site is an empty space, awaiting its next adventure, with recent archaeological excavations still revealing some of its secrets from centuries ago.
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