Middleham  Middleham  is a small English market town and civil parish in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire. It lies in Wensleydale in the Yorkshire Dales, on the south side of the valley, upstream from the junction of the River Ure and River Cover. There has been a settlement there since Roman times. It was recorded in the 1086 "Domesday Book" as "Medelai", i.e. "middle "ham" or village". The first known settlement came in the Roman period. The IXth Roman Army Legion conquered York in AD 69 and moved north. A branch road from the extension of Ermine Street passed through to the Roman fort at Bainbridge. Nearby the Romans built a guard station on the River Ure. Before the Norman Conquest, the lands around were controlled by Gilpatrick. In 1069, William the Conqueror granted them to his Breton cousin Alan Rufus, who built a wooden motte-and-bailey castle above the town. By the time of the 1086 Domesday Book, Alan had passed the castle to his brother Ribald. Its earthworks are still visible at William's Hill. Alan also built the castle at Richmond. Construction of the castle that still dominates the town, Middleham Castle, began in 1190. The Nevilles, Earls of Westmorland, acquired it through marriage to a female descendant of Ribald in the 13th century. It has been dubbed the "Windsor of the North". The castle belonged to Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick when his cousin Richard, Duke of Gloucester (the future Richard III) came there to learn knighthood skills in 1462. During the Wars of the Roses, both Edward IV and Henry VI were held prisoner there. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, became master of the castle in 1471 after Warwick's death at the Battle of Barnet. He used it as his political base for ruling the North on behalf of his brother Edward IV. Richard married Warwick's daughter, Anne Neville, in 1472. Middleham Castle is where their son Edward was born in about 1473 and died in April 1484. Richard III, who died in August 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth, was the last reigning King of England to perish in battle. Under Richard III, Middleham was a bustling market town and political centre. In 1389, the Lord of Middleham Manor received a crown grant to hold a weekly market and yearly fair on the feast of St Alkelda the Virgin.