Dally Castle

Dally Castle is a ruined 13th-century stone motte-and-bailey fortress in Northumberland, and one of the first hall houses in Northumberland. It lies 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Bellingham Castle, and 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Bellingham on the Chirdon Burn, a tributary of the North Tyne. Dally Castle House was built in the 18th century next to the castle. Across the road lies a small flour mill used to grind wheat during the Napoleonic War.

Dally Castle was probably built in 1237. On Speed's map of 1611 it is called Dala, and earlier in his Britannia, Camden called it Delaley. Its history is obscure: originally it was an oblong building of two storeys, with two turrets later added to the north corners and a south wing constructed. The stones were used to build Dally Mill and only the foundations can be traced.

DaIly Castle also has its tragic legend: the owner's sister fell in love with her brother's enemy, Gilbert of Tarset. During one of their meetings, the couple were surprised by her brother, who pursued Gilbert to the summit of Hareshaw Common. A fight took place and Gilbert was slain. The spot where he felI is known today as Gib's Cross.

The castle has been identified with the 'house in the form of a tower' that either David de Lindsay, justiciar of Lothian, or his young namesake, the ward of Alexander of Scotland, was building in Tyndale in 1237, to the alarm of the sheriff Hugh of Bolbec; however, for this there is no positive evidence, and as David had been granted Chirdon (commanding a more important crossing of the Chirdon burn than Dally does) and one would have expected him to build there. The castle was at first a simple oblong building, defended at ground floor level by loopholes for bowmen, and having an upper floor, presumably entered by an outside wooden stair. Its date might have been either in the reign of John or in that of his successor, Henry III. Later in the thirteenth century, the building (which may have been left unfinished) was completed with the addition of a north-west corner turret and south wing, and its defence was moved from the ground floor to crenellated parapets at roof level; at that point the loopholes no longer needed to be carefully built up, except one which was enlarged to light a chamber with a fireplace. Later a north-east turret was added, the south-west corner was strengthened, and an enclosure made on the south scarp of the castle hill. The building continued in habitation till the sixteenth century or later, as is proved by the helmet, sword point, and 'fairy' tobacco pipes found under the debris of the north-west turret in 1888; however, it had become a ruin before Camden visited it in the reign of James I. The Armstrongs' map shows it as a ruin, and apparently during the eighteenth century the roofless walls collapsed and all visible and easily accessible stones were removed to help build Dally Mill. At any rate, when John Hodgson visited Dally he could see no masonry above the turf.

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