Cannonballs found at the castle

$Pontefract Castle$ Pontefract Castle

Cannonballs found at the castle

Conservation workers made a surprising discovery during works on the castle in 2016. They found seven cannonballs embedded almost one metre into the outer wall of the castle!

A pair of large cannonballs next to a ruler for scale

Two of the cannonballs found in 2016

One of our key sources about Pontefract Castle's history during the English Civil Wars is Nathan Drake's diary. Drake was based at the Castle in the 1600s.

He wrote that the cannonballs were fired at Pontefract Castle between 17 and 21 January 1644.

The diary even records that cannonballs were fired from the backyard of a Mr Lumne. This was somewhere around the bottom of today’s Salter Row.

Drake records that the castle was fired at 1,363 times. To him, it was surprising that anything remained of the castle!

Hole left by one of the cannonballs in the outer wall

Pontefract Castle survived the siege. The only section of the castle wall to collapse was the Piper Tower.

According to Drake, the Piper Tower collapsed on the 19 January 1644. Little remains of the Piper Tower today.

The curtain wall which made up the outer edge of the tower still stands to around five metres high on the outside.

The seven cannonballs that lodged in the curtain wall were removed in 2016.

You can now see them in our Visitor Centre.

$Two children looking in a display case containing cannonballs found at Pontefract Castle$

$A tour guide pointing at the remains of a tower at Pontefract Castle$

Find out more on a tour

If you would like to find out more, then come and visit us at Pontefract Castle!

We run two types of guided tour every weekend:

Our Dungeon Tours explore the eerie underground dungeon. They are at 10:45am on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.
Our Castle Explorer Tours tell stories of the castle's past around the grounds. They are at 2pm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.