Boston Castle

Boston Castle

Boston Castle
Moorgate Road
Rotherham
South Yorkshire
S60 2TY

Tel: 01709 336 633
Fax: 01709 823 631
E-Mail: janetrworrall@tiscali.co.uk

Web: Boston Castle

About Boston Castle

Boston Castle was build as a shooting lodge by Thomas Howard 3rd Earl of Effingham on the summit of Canklow. a site on the south-western outskirts of Rotherham. The bold hill overlooked Rotherham and the valley of the Don, at was at an altitude of 300 ft above the level of the sea. The site provided the earl with splendid views across his manors and the valleys and peaks beyond.

No battles were ever fought at Boston Castle, but nonetheless, the building has a story to tell of battles fought in a distant land in the reign of George III. These important events, in fact deprived this country of one of its most important possessions and established the independence of America.

Boston Castle today is a derelict shell, but as a result of a successful Heritage Lottery bid and funding by Rotherham MBC, Boston Castle will be open again to the public in the spring of 2012.

Boston Castle History

A prevailing story regarding Boston Castle is that it was ‘erected in 1775 by the Earl of Effingham to celebrate the Boston Tea Party’ but was Boston Castle built with this intention? As is often the case, the facts tell a different story.

William Mason (1725–97), Rector from 1754 of Aston seven miles south of Rotherham, was one of Horace Walpole’s intimate circle, and frequent correspondent. One of his letters, written in the summer of 1775, implies that the building was started before the calamitous event of 16 December 1773 at Boston:

A room which he built about two years ago on a fine brow of a hill between this place [Aston] and Rotherham, which commands much the best prospect in this country. He christened it Boston Castle because no tea was ever to be drank in it. The statute is religiously observed.

Somewhat remarkably, virtually all the bills for the building of Boston Castle have survived. The work of ‘Ridding Leveling Digging foundation’ actually started on 2 December 1773 – some 2 weeks before the infamous ‘Boston Tea Party’ incident. But even before this began, the Earl was planning some type of celebration, for the bills show the expense of ‘a frame makeing to fix a Cannon upon’, ’17 Rokit sticks at 2d each’, ‘a standard for the soldiers’, and ‘a Board with Letters on for the fire Works’. Possibly this festivity was for the forthcoming building, but I am more inclined to think that it was related to his military activities, and why 17 rockets?
Whilst the unrest in the colonies had been going on for some time, and which to some may have augured worse was to come, news of the ‘Boston Tea Party’ had to travel across the Atlantic, and it didn’t reach the public until the story appeared in the London papers of 21 January 1774:

The letters brought by the New York mail, which arrived yesterday, contain very interesting news respecting the conduct of the Americans, about the teas sent by the East-India Company. The accounts mention Gov. Hutchinson’s having issued a proclamation forbidding the assembly of the people, which had been treated with great contempt; that a watch of 24 to 30 men had been appointed by the people, who did duty night and day; and the Boston Evening Post, of December 20, mentions, that there had been several meetings of the people of Boston, and that previous to the dissolution of the last, a number of persons supposed to be the Aboriginal Natives from their complexions, approaching near the door of the Assembly, gave the war-whoop, which was answered