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Welcome to the Friends of Dudley Castle
It is a pleasure to welcome you to this website and we hope that you will find it 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, hence this website. There are various features of this site which will give you an insight into the present day state of the Castle buildings, and a great deal of information about its history.
The Friends began in 1989, at the time when a ‘dig’ was being carried out in the Courtyard of the Castle to try to establish, amongst many other things, the location of previous incarnations of the Castle. There is currently an exhibition at Dudley Archives, in Coseley, which describes some of the archaeological, architectural and historic aspects of the Castle, and illustrates many of our activities over the years.
Since the time of the ‘dig’, various events have taken place enabling the Friends to raise funds to fulfil their mission statement. We are currently considering how best to use these funds for the permanent enhancement of the Castle. More details of this will appear on this page in due course.
"A History of the Barony and of Dudley Castle", written by John Hemingway, has been published by the Friends and is mentioned elsewhere on this site. Also included in this website is a history of Dudley Castle, written by Adrian Durkin.
Please spend some time, via the links to the left of this page, 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. You may be particularly interested in Adrian Durkin’s History, so please follow the links below which will take you direct to those pages.
We have monthly speaker meetings, on a variety of associated subjects, and coach outings, often to other castles. Members also receive two editions of the Friends’ magazine “Ramparts” each year. It was decided recently that we should try to show what members of the Friends get involved in at some of those meetings, so a further page has been added to illustrate just that. This can be found by, again, following the link just below this message.
If this site has engendered your curiosity and you would like to become a member of the Friends, please go to the page about the Friends and you will find a link to an application form which you can print out and send in (with your cheque, of course!) and we shall be delighted to welcome you.
29 September 2011
Viewers may be interested to
see some details about recent activities of the Friends by clicking on
the 'Recent Activity' link on the left
How the Friends of Dudley Castle began
It was on the evening of Thursday 20th July 1989 that a group of people with a common interest in Dudley Castle met in the grounds of the Castle for the first time to set up the organisation which is now known as The Friends of Dudley Castle. Since then the Friends have always been committed to support and promote the Castle in every way possible, locally, nationally and internationally as a major treasure of British Heritage.
We hope that this web site will enable you to share our interests and
enthusiasm for this scheduled ancient monument that, in one form or another, has dominated the
skyline of Dudley for the last 900 years or so.
Copyright ©2010 The Friends of Dudley Castle