LIVERPOOL’S lost castle is to be resurrected in the renovation of one of the city’s most important squares.

Derby Square at the end of Castle Street is to undergo a major £2m revamp in high quality granite to replace the tired brick work currently there.

Once the site of Liverpool’s castle, different coloured granite will be used to mark out where the walls of the fortress would have been.

The work will be one of the final phases of the big dig and is designed to improve the city centre environment, particularly the route to Liverpool One.

The castle, completed around 1235, was built of sandstone and designed to be self-supporting in times of siege.

By the mid-1300s, it had four towers and was surrounded by a dry moat.

It included an orchard, a chapel, a bakehouse and a herb garden.

Some of the most dramatic scenes of the city’s history were witnessed by the castle during the civil war.

In May 1643, the Parliamentarians took Liverpool and the crucial supply route to Ireland.

Royalists gained control of the fortress in 1644 but only after suffering the heavy loss of 1,500 men in just one week of fighting.

But once the Royalists were defeated, Parliament ordered the demolition of the castle.

By the early 1700s, it was in ruins and its bricks were recycled for other buildings.