Belsay Castle, Belsay, Northumberland
View of the castle, showing the Tower and the ruins of a later domestic building. The tower house castle was built in about 1370. This was during a period of turbulent border warfare. Since this time it has been lived in by successive generations of the Middleton family, until 1962. The Middletons had owned the land since c1240. The castle is mentioned in 1415 in a list or border fortifications. In 1614 the house attached to the tower was added by Thomas Middleton and Dorothy, his wife. This later house was one of the earliest undefended houses in the county. It reflected the more settled conditions in the Border area after the union of the Crowns of England and Scotland in 1603. This property is now in the care of English Heritage (2010).
