Given to George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle in 1660, the castle site remained in private ownership until 1920, when it was sold to the people of Clitheroe to create a war memorial.

[6] However some time during the reign of William Rufus, Poitou gave Blackburnshire and the Bowland area, north of the River Ribble (under Craven in the Domesday Book) to the Baron of Pontefract, Robert de Lacy.

[15] A reference to the "castellatu Rogerii pictaviensis" in the Domesday Book entry for nearby Barnoldswick, has been used to argue that it was first built before 1086 by Roger the Poitevin.

[30] In 1644, during the Civil War, Prince Rupert left a garrison at the castle on his way to relieve the parliamentarian siege of York.

They repaired the main gateway and stocked the castle with provisions, only to abandon it following the royalist loss at the Battle of Marston Moor.

The same year Clitheroe was among a number of castles that parliament decided should be 'slighted' to prevent further use, although it is uncertain what demolition work actually resulted.

[39] The castle continued to operate as the administrative centre for Blackburnshire until 1822 when the town hall in Church Street was built.

The castle site was purchased by public subscription by the then borough council from Lord Montagu of Beaulieu for £9,500 in November 1920, to create a memorial to the 260 soldiers from the town who died in the First World War.

[43] As part of a large redevelopment of the museum, 2008 saw further restoration work to the keep and the first archaeological survey of the site was completed, including test digs.

[44][45] The Historic England scheduled monument record classifies Clitheroe as an enclosure castle, the principal defence being the wall surrounding the site.

Next to this, in the western corner tower, is the lower entry to a spiral staircase, which today rises to a height of 46 feet (14.0 m) from the ground, somewhat higher than the other surviving walls.

[41] What today appears to be another doorway next to this, leading by a right-angled passage into the keep, was actually a barrel vaulted mural chamber, which seems to have had an arrowslit in the wall at this end, now breached.

[51] The re-building work may have removed any evidence of a doorway to what was possibly a second floor of sleeping accommodation, or the walls may have concealed a pitched roof, similar to the keep at Peveril.

[51] The repairs made during the restoration work used limestone from quarries at the nearby village of Chatburn, making the additions identifiable.

[53] The guidebook to the castle relates this local tale, "they always said that the hole in the side of the keep was made by Cromwell in the Civil War.

[54] A 16th-century sketch shows a four-sided, two-storey gatehouse with a Norman round-headed doorway, the door including a wicket gate;[55] a small part may be preserved in the wall to the east.

Possibly similar the one at Tickhill, the upper floor may have served as a lodging for the castle porter who acted as the jailer.

The bailey is thought to have been divided into an inner and outer section, with a second gatehouse and/or defensive ditch to control the entry, of which no trace survives.

[57] The garden terraces that were created in the mid-18th century cut up much of the site, making it difficult to identify the castle's limits.

[39] The chapel of St Michael within the castle in mentioned in charters from 1120, and was ecclesiastically separated from the ancient parish of Whalley.

The museum is based in the former Steward's House, a Grade II listed building, originally built in the 18th century, with later additions and modifications.

[70] The war memorial, a sculpture of a soldier standing atop a pedestal in a mourning pose with head bowed and arms reversed, is located south of the keep.

The main inscription reads "Erected by the inhabitants of Clitheroe in grateful remembrance of their fellow townsmen who gave their lives in defence of their king and country in the Great War 1914 1918".

[72] The centrepiece of the old rose garden south of the castle is a turret from the Houses of Parliament, presented to the borough by its MP (Sir William Brass) in 1937, in commemoration of the coronation of King George VI.

Clitheroe Civic Society has been running a project to restore the monument after it was discovered that corroding iron fixings have been damaging the stonework.

[74] In April 2006, a new skatepark officially opened in the Woone Lane corner of the castle grounds, the £200,000 cost funded by the Lancaster Foundation charitable trust.

[69] In 2010, ten plaques featuring key events in the history of Clitheroe where installed on the walls of the creative activity area next to the keep.

Ten tercet waymarkers, designed by Stephen Raw, each inscribed with a verse of a poem by Carol Ann Duffy, were installed along the route, with the fourth located at the castle.

[77][78] The town's annual Guy Fawkes Night bonfire fireworks display is among a number of regular events staged.

They include important geological sites at Salthill and Bellman quarries, Crow Hill and Worsaw, Gerna and Sykes.