Grosmont Castle Ruins

Grosmont Castle Ruins are accessed by a 20th-century wooden bridge leading to the inner ward. The remaining structures are made of local red sandstone rubble and ashlar, forming the complete ground plan of the castle, which includes a hall block to the east and a curtain wall to the west. The southwest tower of the curtain wall is largely intact, though few remnants of the gatehouse remain. The hall block was originally two storeys high, featuring an upper hall. It has a raking plinth and ashlar quoins at the west corners. The ground floor contains tall, narrow lancet windows: four on each of the long walls, one on the northwest wall, and two on the southeast side. The interior reveals that the taller corresponding lancets at first-floor level were originally set in wide segmental-headed openings, with two surviving on either side of the hall fireplace at the south end. A stone spiral stair, which once connected the ground floor to the upper hall, is located in an embrasure in the left corner. In the centre of the hall block, there are remains of a stone partition wall, likely from a remodelling around 1219.

The southwest tower was originally one of three round towers of the 13th-century curtain wall, but its rear facade was rebuilt and enlarged in the 14th century. This courtyard front features a tall pointed entrance arch on the ground floor, with a single opening at both first and second floor levels above. The interior includes a deep circular basement, and the ground-floor chamber has three archer's loops in splayed embrasures with two-centred arched heads. Access to the upper floors, which were largely rebuilt in the 14th century, is via a spiral stair to the right of the entrance arch. The first floor has three windows in arched recesses facing west, and each floor includes a fireplace on the northwest wall, with the upper floor fireplace featuring chamfered jambs. The northern block was constructed on the site of the third tower of the 13th-century curtain wall, which was demolished when the 14th-century block was built. The most notable feature of this building is the elegant octagonal chimney, which has a slender shaft rising from a raked and moulded base, adorned with delicately worked trefoil-headed gablets on each face and a coronet-like top above.