Mow Cop Castle - Mow Cop, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
N 53° 06.780 W 002° 12.863
30U E 552584 N 5885129
Mow Cop Castle is a folly that was built to look like part of a castle of a bygone era and is located at Mow Cop.
Waymark Code: WMWDBG
Location: West Midlands, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 08/18/2017
Views: 7
Mow Cop Castle was built in the eighteenth century as a folly and summerhouse for Randle Wilbraham 1 of Rode Hall by local stonemasons John and Ralph Harding.
It was constructed to imitate a medieval fortification and sits on a crag that is part of a ridge that forms the boundary between the counties of Cheshire and Staffordshire. It would have enhanced the view of the newly constructed Rode Hall some 3 miles away on the Cheshire side of the hill.
In the mid-nineteenth century it was the subject of a territorial dispute and later was threatened with destruction from quarrying. (
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It was gifted to the National Trust in 1937 and has since been stabilised by that organisation. (
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It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. Historic England describe it as follows;
"Ruinous folly built as a summer house. 1754. By Randle Wilbraham. Coursed sandstone rubble. Round tower to north with ground floor and ruinous upper floor and arch and broken walling to south. Cheshire front: round tower at left with two porthole windows to the ground floor. Row of corbels above this and one pointed arch at left. To right of the tower is a pointed arch and at right again a further piece of ruinous walling with a low porthole window and half of a blocked pointed arch. The Staffordshire side has a porthole window at right of the round tower and a pointed arched doorway at left, a row of corbels dividing the floors and two pointed arches to the first floor with a corbel table below the parapet. Pointed arch to left of this and rectangular surround to the sunken porthole window in the walling at left. The round tower was originally less ruinous and had Y-tracery to the pointed windows and a conical roof, and served as a summer-house for the Wilbrahams and a neighbouring family of Staffordshire landowners. In the late C18 the first meetings of the Primitive Methodists were held below the castle. The castle was built on the county boundary." (
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On the turn of the millennium in the year 2000 a large fire was lit beside the folly as part of a network of communicating beacons across the country.
Entry into the tower is not permissible for safety reasons.
There are magnificent 360- degree views across Cheshire and Staffordshire from this location. There is a small free (for 2 hours) car park near to the folly.