Stansham Castle

"But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to get, son, the strongest castle in all of England."

Stansham Castle, also known as the Castle of Stenshame, is a medieval castle in Stansham, England. It is now a museum with Roy Harker as the curator and George Cousins as an attendant.

One might see a giant robot walking around.

Fiction

Marvel The Transformers comics

An old chronicle records that in the year 1017, as Godwin the Strongarm's forces had just battered down the main gate of Stansham Castle, the ground shook and a giant "man of iron" appeared amongst them. The soldiers were terrified, and their weapons did nothing against the apparition. The metal figure strode in the direction of a nearby abbey, firing warning shots at those who tried to follow him, until a priest put himself in his path and urged him to go back from whence he came. The figure turned and went off into Stanewood. As time passed, he was seen three times in total before the modern day, each occurrence preceded by an earth tremor.

The humans had no idea that he was an Autobot from Cybertron, and that within his ship buried beneath the castle, his partner Navigator was beaming out a signal meant to contact the missing Ark. For millions of years the signal had been broadcast, but it wasn't until the year 1984 that any of its intended recipients were awake to hear it. The Decepticons were the first to take action, with Starscream, Thundercracker, and Skywarp flying over Stansham Castle and dropping a bomb-like probe. The Autobots, meanwhile, made clandestine contact with the son of the castle's curator. And the regional human military, spooked by mysterious jets having strafed the castle, led an investigation that ended up unearthing part of the buried ship. At first the ship's occupants stayed hidden, but then one afternoon a telltale earth tremor struck, and the humans saw their legendary man of iron arise from a hillside in an elevator mechanism. He fired at a military truck that happened to be driving right toward him, blowing it up as its occupants ran to safety.

Then a Seeker suddenly appeared and barraged him with rockets, destroying him. This was followed by an all-out battle between numerous Autobots and Decepticons, ending with the Autobots victorious. Optimus Prime immediately ordered the buried ship's destruction, and Jazz dutifully vaporized it in a massive implosion, not realizing he was killing Navigator within. After the Autobots departed, all traces of the ship were removed by the authorities, and Stansham Castle became a tourist destination again, this time with UFO sightings and alien folklore. Man of Iron

Transformers '84

Spoiler warning: Plot details for Transformers '84 issue 0 follow. Spoilers expire in 117 days

In the year 1017, Stansham Castle was occupied by King Canute and his men, who were besieged by the Viking armies of Godwin the Strongarm. One morning, the arrival of the Cybertronian ship Mantlo caught the attention of the King, who sent out a group of riders led by Harkon to investigate—unaware that a smaller but no less heated war conflict had spilled over to their planet, as the two Autobot Clones clashed with a small Decepticon cell lead by Wingspan. As the battle escalated, the undercover Autobot spy Punch was forced to shoot down the Autobot ship and sent it and its two occupants crashing into the castle. Transformers '84 #0

Notes

• Transformers '84 implies that Fastlane and Cloudraker go on to become the "Man of Iron]" and "Navigator" that appeared in the orignal "Man of Iron" comic. It's not the smoothest of retcons, however; that story implied that their ship had arrived on Earth long before the year 1017, and that the castle had merely been built over the landing site—in the original tale, the "great shaking" was caused by an elevator mechanism responsible for transporting the eponymous Autobot to and from his ship, whereas Transformers '84 suggests that the shaking was the result of the Mantlo crashing into the castle—destroying parts of the walls that are still ruined by the time of the present day—and subsequently getting buried underneath.