Heighley (Heleigh) Castle, Madeley, Staffordshire, is the fortress Henry de Audley raised to command the Cheshire plain. It is the stone that made a writ possible. By the seventeenth century it was already a ruin; it remains archaeology, not a residence. A petitioner walks the ridge to stand in the honour, not to sleep in it.
The gold fret flew here. The 1st Baron was of this house. The 3rd Baron died here in the landscape if not in the solar. Every later Tuchet who sat in Parliament sat because this castle had existed.
Who held this ground
Adam de Aldithley
c. 1125 – 1200
Henry de Audley
c. 1175 – 1246
James de Audley
c. 1220 – 1272
Nicholas de Audley of Heighley
c. 1258 – 1299
Nicholas Audley
c. 1289 – 1316
James Audley
1312 – 1386
Nicholas Audley
c. 1328 – 1391
John Tuchet
1371 – 1408
James Tuchet
c. 1398 – 1459
John Tuchet
c. 1420 – 1490
James Tuchet
c. 1463 – 1497
John Tuchet
c. 1483 – 1558
George Tuchet
d. 1560
George Tuchet
1551 – 1617
Richard Michael Thomas Souter
1914 – 27 June 1997