Aldford Castle is in the village of Aldford in Cheshire to the north of the church.
It was founded by Richard de Aldford as a motte and bailey castle in the 12th century. Some fragments of the stonework around the bailey and significant earthworks survive. It overlooked a ford across the River Dee.[1]
--- ALFORD
On the right bank of the river Dee, three miles S. of Chester, and near Pulford, is the village of Aldford, and below it is the ford across Dee, from which it derives its title. On an eminence above are the earthworks of a castle, erected for the defence of this important point, the ancient junction of the North and South Watling Streets.
The fortification is of singular shape, somewhat resembling a harp in the outline of its earthworks and ditches, which alone remain. The outer ward forms a large triangle, whose sides measure respectively 130, 120, and 55 yards along the enclosing ditch, which is 20 yards wide, where unaltered. The N.W. angle of this figure is occupied by a large circular mound, 40 yards in diameter, surrounded by its own moat, 40 yards wide, and intersects the main ditches before mentioned. Upon this mound of still earlier origin was the Norman keep of the castle of a family who took their name from the locality, but the buildings of which have quite disappeared. The country people call the mound Blobb Hill, and the lower or outer court, the Hall Croft, it being the site of a mansion built by the Arderne family, which, like the castle, has vanished.
It is probable that the structure was built in the reign of Henry II., when the Aldford family lived here, having succeeded to certain manors of the Bigods. Richard de Aldford was succeeded in his fee and castle of Aldford, between 10 John and 13 Henry III., by Sir John Arderne, who appears to have been either his son or his son-in-law, and who was confirmed here by Randle, Earl of Chester, as his miles (" pro honiagio et servitio suo "). This family of Arderne continued here in a direct line till the reign of Henry IV., when, towards the end of that time, Matilda de Arderne brought Aldford to her husband, Thomas Stanley, the third son of Sir John Stanley, of Lathom and Knowsley, K.G. (see Liverpool). On the attainder and execution of Sir William Stanley, Aldford fell to the Crown, and temp. Henry VIII. was bought by Sir William Brereton, who was himself beheaded in 1546, when the property was again seized by the Crown, and granted by the king to Edward Peckham. It afterwards passed to various persons, among whom was the infamous Lord Mohun, whose second wife sold Aldford manor to the Grosvenor family, in whom it is now vested.
The Castles of England - Their Story And Structure
by Sir James D. Mackenzie. 1896 ---
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