Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans, came into possession of Restormel Castle over seven hundred years ago, and some six hundred years before Restormel Road, branching north off North Road East, was built.
Restormel, literally “the moor of the bare hill”, was heavily ivy covered and surrounded by trees for much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, happily however the structure, somewhat ruined in the Civil War, was uncovered towards the end of the nineteenth century and handed over to the Ministry of Works in 1925. Currently it belongs to the Duchy of Cornwall and is administered by English Heritage, and since 1974 it has lent its name to the body that was formed by the amalgamation of St Austell Rural District Council, Newquay Urban Council and St Austell with Fowey Borough Council – which is where the borough element comes from in Restormel Borough.
