Pickering Castle (Pickering)
Pickering Castle is an impressive ruin in the North Yorkshire market town of Pickering.
Standing on a hill above the river, its first building works date from 1179, and it was widely used by Kings of England as a base for the hunting of boar and deer.
It passed into the hands Edmund Crouchback, duke of Lancaster and Earl of Leicester, in 1267 and then his son THomas, who after briefly ruling the kingdom was executed at Pontefract.
When Henry Bolingbroke landed at Ravenspur to seize the crown as Henry IV, he gathered troops at Pickering before deposing Richard II, who was for a while imprisoned here.
The castle was damaged by Parliamentarian besiegers during he Civil War.
The prominent motte is 43 feet high. There are four towers and a shell keep.
Pickering Castle is now in the hands of English Heritage.