St Leonard’s Church, Rockingham Village

St Leonard’s is the parish church of Rockingham Village and sits just below the walls of the castle – it is open to visitors on days when the castle is open to the public. There was probably a chapel inside the castle in the 11th century and in the 15th century a church on the site of the present building was destroyed in the Civil War; the present church dates to 1650.

It’s a small squat building but had some really lovely stained glass windows, many of which were installed in 1845,

and memorials to members of the Watson family who had lived in the castle. This particular memorial was probably erected from the remains of two previous ones and are thought to belong to Dorothy Montague and Sir Edward Watson – grandmother and father of Sir Lewis Watson who had the memorials erected after the Civil War.

There’s also a small cemetery in the grounds with simple headstones.