Within the circuit of its walls, it contained some five acres of ground, with sixteen towers, the outer wall being surrounded by a moat.
The Percys were descended from a Danish chief, who was one of the conquerors of Normandy, and settled there.

The Percy of the time came over with William the Norman, and obtained from him the gift of large possessions in the south of England, and in Yorkshire; and, marrying a great Saxon heiress, added to his wide lands in the north.
One of the Percys, in the reign of Henry the Second, made a journey to Jerusalem, and died in the Holy Land.

None of his four sons survived him.

His eldest daughter Maud married the Earl of Warwick; but, dying childless, her sister Agnes became sole heir to the broad lands of the Percys.

She married the son of the Duke of Brabant, the condition of her marriage being that he should either take the arms of the Percys, instead of his own; or continue to bear his own arms, and take the name of Percy.