Outside the tower

The tall windows, the corbelled parapet and the corner turrets, which make up the front of the tower, all date from the Victorian rebuilding, but its appearance in the Middle Ages was not much different. The design of the windows has changed, but they occupied roughly the same positions as now. Passing through the stone arch, the rooms on either side were the guardrooms, watching over the entrance to the castle. Once inside the gate, there are stables and outbuildings on your right. These probably date from 1860.

The entrance

The ground level inside the castle has risen over the centuries, so that it now slopes up inside the gate, almost to the level of the main door to the upper floors of the castle. This was probably reached originally by steps at the side of the building. The door surround itself is Victorian, but it is in the same place as the medieval entrance. The Landmark Trust removed a single storey extension added on this side of the tower in about 1916.

Inside the tower - first floor

Opening off a passage to the right are two doors, of which the second, although much altered, was originally the grander. When this floor was used as a courtroom, the first door was for the prisoners and guards; the second for the justices. A free-standing screen in the position of the present partition probably divided the room, so that the sitting room, in the larger end, is much as it was in the Middle Ages. Ahead of you when you enter this room is a cupboard, or aumbrey, in which the seals and paraphernalia of justice would have been displayed.

Both ends of the room had fireplaces. That in the sitting room, however, has been much hacked about in recent years and has lost its original mouldings. Also at both ends are garderobes, or privies. The walls have been re-plastered and limewashed, and nearly all the joinery is new, including the oak-boarded ceiling.

The second floor

The decision to reinstate the original newel staircase caused a minor problem because either in the 17th century or in 1860, the level of the second floor had been lowered by about two feet. Landmark decided to keep to the existing, lower, floor level, so some steps had to be built to bridge the gap between it and the threshold of the medieval door. Under the threshold two 19th-century shoes were discovered.

The second floor was probably always divided into two or more rooms. The present arrangement of the partitions is almost entirely new, however, as are the floorboards. There is another garderobe in the corner of the large bedroom, like those on the floor below. In the bathroom the window sill contains a stone sink, or slop-stone, showing that this floor was always domestic. It possibly formed a self-contained apartment or lodging for one of the castle officials.

The roof

The Landmark Trust put back local stone slates of the kind that would have covered the roof originally. They came from Ladycross Quarry near Allendale, south west of Hexham. The lead was also renewed and the wall-walk itself paved with York stone slabs.

The restoration of Morpeth Castle was carried out under the supervision of the Edinburgh architects, Stewart Tod and Partners. The builders were Bowden & Co of Newcastle-upon- Tyne. Archaeological investigations, and the recording of the castle's structural history, were carried out by Peter F. Ryder, of Riding Mill. These were funded by English Heritage, which also gave a grant towards the cost of the repairs.