Askerton Castle

Askerton Castle is a medieval fortified manor house in the remote village of Askerton, Cumbria, set close to the English-Scottish border and listed at Grade I — England's highest level of statutory protection. It belongs to the tradition of the peel tower, a form of compact defensive structure common across the turbulent Anglo-Scottish borderlands, where local landowners built for protection against the raiding clans known as Border Reivers. The castle remains in private ownership and is not regularly open to visitors, placing it firmly off the beaten track. For those interested in early medieval domestic fortification, its relative obscurity makes it an unusually unaltered example of border architecture.