Guidebook: Richmond Castle and Easby Abbey

The ruins of Richmond Castle and Easby Abbey have long been admired for their imposing and picturesque beauty. Set within sight of one another, a mile apart down the valley of the River Swale, the histories of both have been intimately intertwined. Richmond Castle was probably established in the 1070s by Alan Rufus to defend his northern estates from the Anglo-Saxon nobility dispossessed after the Norman Conquest.