The New Murrey and Blue blog

We all know Stokesay Castle. It’s simply outstanding, both dramatically and aesthetically. The half-timbered upper storey perched on top of the north tower is particularly beautiful. I remember once, many moons ago, my husband and I drove past on a road that looked down at the castle. It was alluring….but not open at that particular time, so we couldn’t go in.

There was a Stokesay settlement mentioned in the Domesday Book, and I now know that the name is a combination of Stoke and the de Say family, which held it way back when.

You can read all about Stokesay at this English Heritage site here, which also contains some excellent scene-reconstructions of what it was like there in previous centuries.

Go to this blog to see lots of pictures, including an imagined scene in the great hall during a ten-day visit by the Bishop of Hereford in 1290. The only decent reproduction of this scene that I can find is shown below and is from the above link. The site also lists the eye-boggling amount of food that was consumed during this visit. I imagine the owners were glad when their illustrious guest moved on!

If you go here you’ll find the present Bishop of Hereford’s opinion of Stokesay!

And as a complete aside, in my ramblings on the internet, I happened upon this interesting site and its tingling little tale of a ghostly event in a south tower room at Stokesay. Probably connected to the Civil War, not the medieval period, but intriguing all the same. And I have to agree that such things are more likely to happen when one isn’t thinking of anything in particular, “just being”. Go to the site to read what I’m talking about.

The above illustrations have been taken from the various links above.