Mulgrave Castle

Mulgrave Castle refers to one of three structures on the same property in Lythe, near Whitby, North Yorkshire, England.

The 19th-century Handbook for Travellers in Yorkshire and for Residents in the County recounts that the ancient castle was built by Wada, ruler of Hälsingland.

[1] Leland in his Itineraries, circa 1545, refers to several local legends supposing Wada to have been a giant who built many castles and roads in Yorkshire.

[1] Fossard is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as a tenant of 114 manors, all in Yorkshire, including under Robert, Count of Mortain of "Grif", identified as Mulgrave in the hundred of Langbaurgh.

De Mauley was a native of Poitou, whose marriage to this wealthy heiress is said to have been his reward for having murdered in 1203 Prince Arthur, the son of John's elder brother who threatened his succession to the throne.

The property passed to the Radcliffes on the marriage of Dorothy Bigot into that family, before settling in 1625 on Lord Sheffield of Butterwick, later to be titled Earl of Mulgrave by Charles I.

[4] Subsequently, it was dismantled by Parliamentary order in 1647; the lie of bricks from the destruction suggest that gunpowder might have been employed for this purpose.

[1] A summer house was also built on the grounds, according to legend on the spot of a hermitage which William de Percy established in 1150.