Blenkinsopp Castle

Blenkinsopp Castle is the ruin of a country house about one mile southwest of the village of Greenhead in Northumberland, close to Hadrian's Wall country. Its oldest surviving element is a 14th-century peel tower, a fortified residential structure typical of the Anglo-Scottish border region, where raiding across the frontier made robust stone towers a necessity. A later manor house built around the tower was partially gutted by fire and has since fallen into picturesque decay; the entire complex is listed as a Grade I structure and a Scheduled Monument. Set in open parkland, the ruin today attracts visitors drawn to its quiet desolation and the faint outline of a turbulent medieval past.