Robert Fitzrandolph, 3rd Lord of Middleham and Spennithorne, began Middleham Castle in 1190, near an earlier timber castle called William's Hill. The keep measures 105 feet (32 meters) north to south and 78 feet (24 meters) west to east. It has two stories, with two large vaulted chambers below and two grand halls above. A curtain wall was added in the thirteenth century, and the Neville family, who held the castle from 1270, added halls and outbuildings in the fifteenth.
Richard, Duke of Gloucester, later Richard III, lived here after 1460, and Edward IV was briefly imprisoned here in 1469. Edward of Middleham was born here and died here in 1484. Henry VII seized the castle after Bosworth in 1485.
It fell into ruin in the seventeenth century. English Heritage has cared for it since 1984, and it is Grade I listed.
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