THE HERMIT OF BARNARD CASTLE
This is one of our Teesdale Tales, a true story shaped by the people and places of Barnard Castle. It has been remembered in local history for generations and remains part of the character of the dale.
Barnard Castle has seen many lives pass through it, from lords and soldiers to travellers sheltering from the weather. But in the middle of the nineteenth century, one resident stood apart from them all. He was not a lord or a soldier, nor even a caretaker. He was simply known as Frank Shield, the hermit of Barnard Castle, and for a time he became as much a part of the place as the stone walls themselves.
Frank was born in Barnard Castle in 1815, the son of an ostler who worked with the horses of travellers staying at the local inns. He followed his father’s trade at first, but something changed in him in the 1840s. Instead of taking up ordinary work and living in the town, he walked up to the castle and quietly moved into the Round Tower. No one knows quite why he did it, but by 1851 he was settled enough to call the keep his home and to describe himself as a recluse, an antiquary and an artist in painting.
Visitors who made their way up the hill to see the ruins soon discovered that Frank was more than just a man seeking solitude. He had become a self taught expert on the history of the castle. He decorated the walls and ceiling of his little cell with plaster casts he made himself. He explored every corner of the building so often that he could guide visitors through it better than any official caretaker. People described him as short, with a beard so wild that one visitor said it looked as though he had lived there since before razors were invented. His strange appearance only added to his fame. Tourists arrived hoping to meet him, and many did, often being shown around by the hermit himself.
Frank lived in the Round Tower for years, greeting visitors, studying the castle and living in a world of his own. But in 1859 something happened that forced him to leave. The details were not recorded, only that there was an altercation and Frank was evicted. For a while he disappeared from sight, slipping out of daily conversation and leaving his little cell behind.
He returned to the Tees some years later, not to the castle but to the ruins of Egglestone Abbey. By 1874 he was living among the broken walls, sweeping out the old rooms and doing what he could to clean and repair the site. Visitors described him as busy, determined and absorbed in the work, as though he had found a new purpose in preserving the abbey. The solitude suited him at first, but it did not last. As time passed he became unsettled, convinced that the ruins were haunted. Whether he truly saw or heard something, or whether his mind was worn down by years of loneliness, no one could say. What is known is that he became distressed and fearful enough for the authorities to intervene.
Later in 1874 he was taken to the workhouse, where he was described as being in a troubled state, unable to shake the belief that something moved in the abbey with him. He never fully recovered. Frank died in Barnard Castle in 1881 at the age of sixty six, far from the Round Tower where he once welcomed strangers and proudly shared the history he loved.
His cell in the Round Tower still exists. Stripped of the decorations he made, it is just another quiet room in an old building, but those who know its story pause a moment longer when they stand inside it. They imagine the little man with the great beard, living among the stones, guiding visitors through broken walls and making plaster casts by the light of a small stove. His presence has faded from memory for many, yet his life remains part of the fabric of the castle and of the dale itself.
Today Barnard Castle is visited for its history, its views across the river and its links to great names of the past. Few visitors realise that one of the people who knew the castle best did not come from noble blood or military command. He was simply Frank Shield, the hermit who made the castle his home, the abbey his refuge and solitude his companion until the very end.
Barnard Castle and the Round Tower, where Frank Shield lived as the town’s nineteenth century hermit.
Part of our Discover Teesdale collection. Explore the dale’s walks, waterfalls, history and stories of the people who shaped this place.
This tale is drawn from real events recorded in Barnard Castle and Egglestone Abbey. Though details were remembered differently over time, the heart of the story remains part of Teesdale’s history.
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