Tamworth

Power beside the Anker

Between the seventh and ninth centuries, Tamworth was a royal and administrative centre of Mercia. Charters locate royal households here at Easter and Christmas between 751 and 857. Written evidence for rulers is complemented by evidence of work: excavations in the 1970s revealed two watermills beside the Anker, one dated to the middle of the ninth century. Grinding grain formed part of the settlement’s life alongside ceremony and government. ^[2]

Fortifying a frontier

In 913 Æthelflæd refortified Tamworth. The defensive settlement belonged to a wider campaign to secure Mercia against Scandinavian rule. Its strategic role preceded the Norman castle: the visible fortress should not be mistaken for the building in which earlier Mercian rulers lived. The castle museum distinguishes the Saxon enclosure and its archaeology from the later stronghold. ^{[2] [3]}

A fortress becomes a household

The Ferrers family acquired the castle in 1423 and made it a more imposing residence. Thomas Ferrers built a timber great hall around 1437. During the Elizabethan period Humphrey Ferrers altered medieval structures to create rooms and approaches suited to a wealthy household. Bay windows admitted light to the northern reception rooms, and a new stair turret connected the hall with the first floor. ^[4]

A three-storey southern wing, a storeyed porch and elaborate gables helped present the castle as a great house. James I visited in 1619, 1621 and 1624. These changes made room for hospitality and display within a defensive structure. The building’s history is therefore one of repeated adaptation, rather than the survival of a single unaltered Norman interior. ^[4]

Markets and the industrial district

Tamworth remained a market centre through the medieval and early modern periods. A royal charter established its corporation in 1560, embracing both sides of a town divided between Staffordshire and Warwickshire. The county boundary ran through the centre. ^[5]

Manufacturing connected Tamworth with its neighbours. Robert Peel, the Lancashire cotton manufacturer, opened works in the town and Fazeley. Coal and clay encouraged mining villages in the wider parish. These settlements belonged to a connected district with several distinct centres. ^[5]

Expansion and public inheritance

From the mid-1950s, Tamworth accommodated Birmingham overspill. Large housing estates developed east of the old centre, around former mining villages. The Victoria County History connects this expansion with town-centre redevelopment. ^[5]

The borough bought the castle in 1897, turning a former private residence into a civic inheritance. Public ownership also brought the continuing obligation to maintain a complicated structure. The museum’s conservation account describes trapped water in the mound, drainage failures and movement affecting the walls and interior. The castle entered the Heritage at Risk Register in 2023; repairs are part of the history of how the town uses and protects it. ^[6]