Mow Cop Castle facts for kids
Mow Cop Castle is a folly at Mow Cop in the civil parish of Odd Rode, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. The ridge, upon which the castle sits, forms the boundary between the counties of Cheshire and Staffordshire, the dioceses of Chester and Lichfield and the ecclesiastical provinces of Canterbury and York.
History
Traces of a prehistoric camp have been found here. In 1754, Randle Wilbraham of nearby Rode Hall built an elaborate summerhouse looking like a medieval fortress and round tower.
The area around the castle was nationally famous for the quarrying of high-quality millstones ('querns') for use in water mills. Excavations at Mow Cop have found querns dating back to the Iron Age.
The Castle was given to the National Trust in 1937. The same year over ten thousand Methodists met on the hill to commemorate the first Primitive Methodist camp meeting there.
Mow Cop and its folly are central images in Alan Garner's novel Red Shift.