If you are planning to visit Yarm and looking for things to see and do, you may have seen Google Maps shows a castle. It’s possible, the fact that the Yarm appears to have a castle may be the main reason you are planning on visiting the town. If this is so, I’ve written this article especially for you.
Yarm does have a castle, but it’s probably not the kind of castle you are hoping to find. The truth is, the castle is quite interesting to see but it may not be worth planning a trip specially to go and see it.
However, if you are already in Yarm, or want to go there for another reason, it’s worth making time to go and take a look.
When people go to visit castles they tend to expect to find a ruin or a building they can enter and walk around. Yarm Castle offers a totally different visitor experience. You can see everything there is to see in less than a minute because Yarm castle is a castle in miniature that sits on top of a wall outside someone’s house. It’s been there for more than 100 years.
“Yarm castle” was built in the 1880s by a local builder who used to live in the house. His name was David Doughty. Many years later, his son, Henry, built a small model of Yarm town hall to sit beside the castle on the wall.
There’s more to Yarm’s model castle than many visitors realize. The windows have small panes of coloured glass. This is not apparent when you are standing in the street looking at the castle during the day.
When David Doughty built the model he fitted a gas lamp inside that made it possible to make the windows light up at night. This may sound like a strange idea but, at the time, most towns and cities in England had gas street lights.
However, at the time Doughty built his castle gas street lights were already on the decline. In cities all over Europe and the USA, gas lamps were being replaced with electric alternatives.
Yarm’s little castle kept pace with the times and was later fitted with an electric lightbulb as well. Unfortunately, there are no records of when this change took place.
If you visit Yarm and decide to take a look at this miniature castle on a wall, you will notice it’s inhabited by a motley crew of tiny figurines.
Up on the battlements, several straight-backed soldiers do their sentry duty alongside Jemima Puddleduck, a rabbit, and an individual that looks suspiciously like Toad of Toad Hall.
If you are planning on visiting Yarm and want to see this unique and often-missed tourist attraction, here’s a link that will help you find it via Google Maps: Directions to Yarm Castle
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