Welcome To The Friends Of Dudley Castle

It is a pleasure to welcome you, we hope that you will find our site interesting. Our Mission Statement is to support and promote Dudley Castle in every way possible locally, nationally and internationally as a major treasure of British Heritage. The Friends of Dudley Castle try to be very active in promoting the Castle. These pages will give you an insight into the present day state of the Castle buildings, and a great deal of information about its history.

**Please bear with us while we introduce a new website**

Events

Check out our Events page to find out when the next meetings will be.

As the castle is located in Dudley, here is link to the video Discover Dudley

News

Last year we heard from Dudley Council, that the Castle has been placed on the At Risk Register.

Contrary to how it sounds, this is actually good news! It means that Historic England now have the building in its grip, so to speak. This enables funding and other resources to be given and obtained both in order to get it repaired, and to fully service the buildings and the archaeological archive.

So this will give rise to a final review of the ‘Castle Finds’. Included is writing up the ‘digs’, with the appointment of an archaeologist to supervise it, as well as the repair work and so on.

The first physical step seems to be the clearance of vegetation from the castle to enable a full electronic survey to be carried out. This will enable a phased series of funding applications to deal with, first, the repair work and, second, future improvements. We hope this will include a museum type display centre, where the Finds can be set out and brought to the public view from the cellars at Himley Hall.

Of course, this will all take time, as until now it has been totally unclear whether it would ever happen. Now is the start of the process so the future seems secured for the Castle to continue to stand as Dudley’s emblem and get promoted globally as part of the new Geopark complex.

No doubt there will be further news as the months go by and we will keep you all informed as things progress.

Then and Now

Please spend some time, via the menu of this site, to see what the Castle looks like today, and to find out what it has been used for over the past 600 years or so.

“A History of the Barony and of Dudley Castle”, written by John Hemingway, has been published by the Friends. Contact us to find out more.