Scarborough Castle (Scarborough)
Scarborough Castle is an impressive castle on a headland overlooking the sea at Scarborough in North Yorkshire.
On the site was a Bronze Age dwelling, and later a Roman signal station, built around 370, of which there are still some remains.
The castle was built, with a moat, about 1136 by William le Gros, Lord of Holderness. Henry II took it over in 1179 and constructed the keep.
Piers Gaveston, the notorious favourite of Edward II, was besieged at Scarborough Castle in 1312 before surrendering to the Earl of Pembroke, and it held out against Robert Aske for three weeks during the Pilgrimage of Grace.
During the Civil War, the castle was held for the king.
In the 18th century it was used as an ammunition dump, and a little earlier in 1655 George Fox, founder of the Society of Friends, was imprisoned in the castle.
In 1914 the two German battleships "Van der Tann" and "Derfflinger" fired salvoes at the castle and the town, in the process demolishing the barracks.
Scarborough Castle is now in the care of English Heritage.