Orford Castle

Our View

Dating from the 12th century, and remarkably well preserved, Orford Castle is a must-see attraction when exploring the Suffolk coast. Its rooms offer a real sense of what day-to-day life must have been like in a castle in medieval England. Inside, there’s a maze of passages that lead to the kitchen, a small chapel and bed chambers built within the turrets. You can explore the lower and upper halls with their displays of medieval seals, coins and regalia, and climb right up to the roof where there are fabulous views seaward to Orford Ness. In the basement of the castle you can see a well, which would have been a vital source of water for its residents, including Henry II who had the castle built in 1165. As the story goes, when Henry II came to the throne in 1154 he inherited a troubled kingdom from King Stephen. The barons, keen to accrue personal power, had manipulated tensions between Stephen and his rival for the throne, Matilda (Henry’s mother). Hugh Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, was one such baron who had immense influence in East Anglia and owned most of its castles. In order to assert his authority, Henry II took castles belonging to Bigod and built Orford Castle to protect Orford’s prosperous harbour. Orford Castle was completed in two years, and comprised an unusual 21-sided keep surrounded by walls and defensive towers. Today, only the keep survives, but it is one of the most remarkable in England due to its design. It rises to some 90ft in height and has five storeys. If you stand outside and look up at its mighty creamy-grey walls, you can get a sense of how formidable this castle once was to potential invaders.