The Castle Inn, also known as The Round Tower, or Radway Tower, lies on
the summit of Edgehill, some 700ft above sea level. Although its postal
address is Banbury, Oxfordshire, the village of Edgehill actually nestles
about a mile inside the Warwickshire border.
The octagonal tower was started in 1742 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Edgehill and was opened on 3rd September, 1750, the anniversary of Oliver Cromwell's death. It was built by Sanderson Miller, or Millar, who lived in nearby Radway. Miller made a name for himself as a "gentleman architect" and had a hand in many fine Warwickshire buildings including Warwick City Hall and Kineton Church.He also designed the walled gardens at Farnborough. His own house - Radway Grange - was an extraordinary mixture of styles, and his passion for "Gothic" brought an amateur air to the originally mediaeval residence.
It was this flair for architecture that led him to design the Round Tower,
apparently based on Guy's Tower in Warwick Castle, and to have it built
as a gatehouse. He used a local ironstone - known as Hornton Stone after
the neighbouring Oxfordshire village - which is still quarried behind the
road that runs in front of the Inn. A wooden draw-bridge linked the
70ft
tower with a smaller square tower, and although this feature was lost for
many years, it has now been faithfully restored.
The tower marks the spot where, on the afternoon of Sunday 23rd October 1642, King Charles I raised his standard and summoned his officers about him to prepare for the first major battle of the English Civil War. It was Prince Rupert who urged that they attack the Parliamentary forces, or Roundheads there and then; it is said the young Prince "would sooner fight than eat"! There followed the first, and one of the fiercest battle of the Civil War ... the Battle of Edgehill.
The King's line was along the crest of the hill. The Parliamentary soldiers under Lord Essex - having marched from Worcester via Kineton in ten days - were beyond the village of Radway in the plain immediately below.
Many renowned Warwickshire families were involved in the Battle of Edgehill; the Verneys, the Fieldings and the Shuckburghs. Father fought son, brother matched brother. Some 30,000 Englishmen took arms against each other. But like so many, the Batttle of Edgehill was indecisive - a mix up of slashing steel, cannon and musket fire which claimed the lives of more than 1,500 men on each side.
The fighting ceased in the evening as the confusion brought on by darkness forced the two armies apart. The Parliamentary forces retired and were billeted at Kineton. But the Royalist troops, or Cavaliers, spent a miserable night half-frozen and hungry, among the hills on either side of the round tower.
Oliver Cromwell took no part in the battle but was at Burton Dassett some 3 miles to the north east. As darkness thickened, Parliamentarian soldiers climbed Burton Dassett Hill and lit the fire on the old Beacon House.The message was passed to watchers at Ivinghoe, 42 miles south east in Buckinghamshire and thence to London. In the bars of the Castle Inn, reminders of the Civil War years are plentiful - muskets, halberds, breastplates, maps and paintings adorn the walls.
Many historical names are linked with the Tower. One local family who lived in the area at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII was named Light. A daughter of the family married Robert Washington, of Sulgrave, a nephew of Lawrence Washington from whom the first President of the United States was descended.
Henry Fielding is supposed to have written some of his novel "Tom Jones" locally and have read it to the Earl of Chatham (statesman and father of William Pitt, the younger), and to Sanderson Miller. In 1908 Earl Haig - World War I general and founder of the Poppy Fund - spent his honeymoon at Radway where his sister had her home.
Richard Jago, the 18th century Warwickshire poet, wrote of the Tower:
Thanks Miller! to the Paths
That ease our winding steps! Thanks to the fount,
The trees, the flowers imparting to the sense
Fragrance, or dulcet sound of murmuring rill,
And stilling ev'ry tumult in the breast!
And oft the stately wood, and oft the broken arch,
Or mould'ring wall, well taught to counterfeit
The waste of time, to solemn thought excite,
And crown with graceful pomp a shaggy hill.
Jago's contemporary, author Horace Walpole, said that the Tower expressed "the true trust of the Barons' Wars". A reference to the wars of the reign of Henry III, closely connected with Warwickshire.
The tower first became an Inn in 1822 when it was sold by a descendant
of Sanderson Miller to become a free house. The story goes that he was
a minister of religion and that the decision was unpopular with his family.
In 1922 the Inn was acquired by the present brewers, the Hook Norton Brewery Company, a local family firm whose traditional ales are held in the highest esteem. A major refurbishment and restoration project was completed by the brewery in 1992.
The views from the Castle Inn's garden and terrace stretch out across
several neighbouring counties. Some say that, on a clear day, it is possible
to make out the Wrekin in Shropshire and the foothills of the Welsh mountains!
However, the less distant hills of Broadway and Malvern are more obvious.
For walkers there are many nearby public footpaths and bridle paths, three of which converge on the Inn.One leads down to the village of Radway where the church lychgate has a "roll of honour" bearing Earl Haig's name in strict alphabetical turn - probably the only such roll in the country! There is a maze of trails in the woods close to the Inn while, across the road a public path leads through and over some of the local quarries.
Motorists are a short drive away from Banbury, with its famous nursery rhyme Cross, Shakespeare's Stratford, historic Warwick, Royal Leamington Spa and the rolling hills of the Cotswolds. Les than two miles from the Inn is the National Trust property Upton House.
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