Conisbrough Castle has a unique cylindrical keep flanked by six buttresses. The four-storey limestone structure was built in 1180, as part of a network of Norman fortresses designed to suppress the north of England, following the Norman Conquest. It remained in the hands of the de Warenne family until the reign of Edward III.

By the Tudor period it had lapsed into a ruinous state. This is perhaps why it survived further destruction after the English Civil War, when so many castles were slighted to diminish their defensive value.

The castle features as itself in the famous Sir Walter Scott novel, Ivanhoe.