Helmsley Castle

Submitted by Alan Marsden on Sat, 05/09/2026 - 00:00

Family and I called at Helmsley Castle last month. Although only in the neighbouring county of North Yorkshire, it took a couple of hours to get there, which were pleasantly spent talking and snoozing. Much of it is now ruinous, not least because of the usual Parliamentary order to ‘slight’ it after it was held for the King in the civil wars. Curiously, its demolition was also demanded by the royalist defenders on some proffered articles of surrender. During its siege, the great Presbyterian general, Sir Thomas Fairfax, was injured, remarking “…I went to Helmsley to take in ye castle there, but received a dangerous shott in my shoulder and was brought back to Yorke; All for some time being doubtful of my Recovery.”

Ironically, once the wars had concluded and some peace returned to our poor nation, the owner, George Villiers, the second Duke of Buckingham, married Mary Fairfax, Sir Thomas’ daughter. That place at which he had nearly been shot into eternity and caused him much grief became his family’s property, his descendant’s inheritance.

This old earth on which we live, the scene of our trials, griefs, hardships and pains, shall one day be our eternal home and blissful inheritance. Although it shall be re-made, it is the place where God Himself shall dwell and we shall be His people; the meek shall inherit it.