Tickhill Castle Revisited: An Assessment of The Repair Strategy

The early 1980s were troublesome times in South Yorkshire. Nestled between coalmining villages Tickhill seemed an idyllic backwater complete with duck pond and overgrown medieval castle. The miner’s strike formed a curious context for a programme of repairs with pitched battles with the police at nearby Maltby and views from the castle motte towards the Nottinghamshire pits ignoring the call for strike action.
Earlier repairs to the castle had used cement-based mortars and the tops of the walls were capped with a very hard mortar containing round quartzite pebbles. The old capping was replaced by cambered stonework set in mortar to ensure water was kept away from the core of the walls.