Richmond Castle was probably begun soon afterwards to cement royal control in the north and to maintain vigilance over the border with Scotland, which at that time was further south than it is today. In return for his service, King William granted him land in the north in about 1071. A kinsman of William the Conqueror, Alan may have commanded the Breton contingent of the Norman army at the Battle of Hastings. The exact circumstances remain obscure, but it was most likely founded in the late 1070s by Count Alan Rufus, ‘the Red’, of Penthièvre.
Richmond Castle was built in the aftermath of the Norman Conquest of 1066.
