Surrounded by a moat, and located in parkland, it was originally a defensive structure, one of a number of castles in the Lune Valley.

[1] Situated between the villages of Cantsfield and Tunstall the castle is built on a mound and is encircled by a moat.

[7] Dubbed the "Stainless Knight" by the king, he was immortalized in the poem Marmion - A Tale of Flodden Field by Sir Walter Scott.

[8] Work was done on the building to convert it to a country house in 1810 by Jeffry Wyattville, and in 1826–29 by George Webster,[5] but in 1876 it was gutted by fire.

[9] From 1885 until the early twentieth century,[10] Thurland Castle was owned by the coal-mining Lees family, formerly of Clarksfield, near Oldham, Lancashire, from a junior branch of which came the writer James Lees-Milne.