The first Duke of Buckingham's household was an itinerant body which accompanied him from one lordship to another as he toured the estates or executed official business. The Duke and his son, Humphrey, Lord Stafford, appear between them to have made fairly regular circuits of their property. Each receiving area boasted at least one large residence capable of accommodating the retinue with which they always travelled. The oldest and in many ways the most impressive of these was Stafford Castle, where Duke Humphrey kept a large stable with a resident staff of over forty yeomen and grooms. The Castle, dominating the town and its environs, provided an ideal recruiting centre and assembly point for his retainers in Cheshire, Staffordshire and the Welsh March. It had been built by Ralph Stafford in 1348 as a defence against the Welsh, and his choice of site continued to impress visitors long after the fortifications themselves had fallen into decay. As the crown commissioners sent to survey the Duke's estates in 1521 reported: