| Apley Castle | |
|---|---|
| Hadley, Shropshire, England | |
 Converted stableblock, containing remains of original castle | |
  Apley Castle | |
| Coordinates | 52°42′55″N2°30′44″W / 52.7152°N 2.5122°W |
| Type | Fortified manor house |
| Site information | |
| Owner | Private |
| Condition | Inhabited |
Apley Castle was a medieval fortified manor in the village of Hadley, Shropshire, England.
Apley Castle was a moated, fortified manor house in Hadley near Wellington. [1] By the early 14th century the manor was owned by the Charlton family, who had become major landowners in the region, and in 1327 Sir Alan Charlton received a licence to crenellate the manor house. [2] The building work occurred shortly afterwards, producing a square building set around a central courtyard. [3] Charlton's descendants expanded the castle considerably into an Elizabethan mansion during the late 16th and early 17th century, using grey ashlar stone. [4]
Margaret Charlton, the religious non-conformist, was born here in 1636. She would be a supporter and later wife of Richard Baxter. In 1642 the castle passed by marriage to Thomas Hanmer, who married Margaret's mother (and very recent widow) Mary Charlton. [5] With the outbreak of the English Civil War that year between the supporters of King Charles and Parliament, Hanmer, a royalist, fortified the mansion, which formed a valuable strategic stronghold close to Shrewsbury. [6] Encouraged by Francis Charlton's younger brother, the castle was sacked by Parliamentary forces during the war: £1,500 of damage was done and the lead from the roof was stolen for use at Shrewsbury Castle. [7] Hanmer was taken prisoner and Mary Hanmer managed to recover both her children and the castle in order that her son Francis Charlton could become its heir. [5]
A second mansion, also called Apley Castle, was subsequently built between 1791 and 1794 for the Charltons, and the repaired first castle was reused as the stableblock for this building. [8] This building was demolished in 1955, and the stables fell into disrepair. [9] In 1996, the stables, including their medieval elements, were renovated and turned into a private house. [10] The site is a Grade 2* listed building.
Clun Castle is a medieval ruined castle in Clun, Shropshire, England. Clun Castle was established by the Norman lord Robert de Say after the Norman invasion of England and went on to become an important Marcher lord castle in the 12th century, with an extensive castle-guard system. Owned for many years by the Fitzalan family, Clun played a key part in protecting the region from Welsh attack until it was gradually abandoned as a property in favour of the more luxurious Arundel Castle. The Fitzalans converted Clun Castle into a hunting lodge in the 14th century, complete with pleasure gardens, but by the 16th century the castle was largely ruined. Slighted in 1646 after the English Civil War, Clun remained in poor condition until renovation work in the 1890s.
Wellington is a market town and a civil parish in the borough of Telford and Wrekin, Shropshire, England. It is situated 3 miles (4.8 km) north-west of Telford town centre and 12 miles (19 km) east of Shrewsbury; the summit of The Wrekin lies 3 miles south-west of the town. The population of the town was 25,554 in 2011.
Kirby Muxloe Castle, also known historically as Kirby Castle, is a ruined, fortified manor house in Kirby Muxloe, Leicestershire, England. William, Lord Hastings, began work on the castle in 1480, founding it on the site of a pre-existing manor house. William was a favourite of King Edward IV and had prospered considerably during the Wars of the Roses. Work continued quickly until 1483, when William was executed during Richard, Duke of Gloucester's, seizure of the throne. His widow briefly continued the project after his death but efforts then ceased, with the castle remaining largely incomplete. Parts of the castle were inhabited for a period, before falling into ruin during the course of the 17th century. In 1912, the Commissioners of Work took over management of the site, repairing the brickwork and carrying out an archaeological survey. In the 21st century, the castle is controlled by English Heritage and open to visitors.
Raby Castle is a medieval castle located near Staindrop in County Durham, England, among 200 acres (810,000 m2) of deer park. It was built by John Neville, 3rd Baron Neville de Raby, between approximately 1367 and 1390. Cecily Neville, the mother of the Kings Edward IV and Richard III, was born here. After Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmorland, led the failed Rising of the North in favour of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1569 Raby Castle was taken into royal custody. Sir Henry Vane the Elder purchased Raby Castle in 1626 and neighbouring Barnard Castle from the Crown, and the Earls of Darlington and Dukes of Cleveland added a Gothic-style entrance hall and octagonal drawing room. From 1833 to 1891 they were the Dukes of Cleveland and they retain the title of Lord Barnard. Extensive alterations were carried out in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is famed for both its size and its art, including works by old masters and portraits. After 1733 it was frequented from his young age of eleven by the poet Christopher Smart, who eloped briefly at the age of thirteen with Anne Vane, daughter of Henry Vane, who succeeded to the Barnard title. It is a Grade I listed building and open to the public on a seasonal basis.
Baconsthorpe Castle, historically known as Baconsthorpe Hall, is a ruined, fortified manor house near the village of Baconsthorpe, Norfolk, England. It was established in the 15th century on the site of a former manor hall, probably by John Heydon I and his father, William. John was an ambitious lawyer with many enemies and built a tall, fortified house, but his descendants became wealthy sheep farmers, and being less worried about attack, developed the property into a more elegant, courtyard house, complete with a nearby deer park.
The great chamber was the second most important room in a medieval or Tudor English castle, palace, mansion, or manor house after the great hall. Medieval great halls were the ceremonial centre of the household and were not private at all; the gentlemen attendants and the servants would come and go all the time. The great chamber was at the dais end of the hall, usually up a staircase. It was the first room which offered the lord of the household some privacy from his own staff, albeit not total privacy. In the Middle Ages the great chamber was an all-purpose reception and living room. The family might take some meals in it, though the great hall was the main eating room. In modest manor houses it sometimes also served as the main bedroom.
Dunster Castle is a former motte and bailey castle, now a country house, in the village of Dunster, Somerset, England. The castle lies on the top of a steep hill called the Tor, and has been fortified since the late Anglo-Saxon period. After the Norman Conquest of England in the 11th century, William de Mohun constructed a timber castle on the site as part of the pacification of Somerset. A stone shell keep was built on the motte by the start of the 12th century, and the castle survived a siege during the early years of the Anarchy. At the end of the 14th century the de Mohuns sold the castle to the Luttrell family, who continued to occupy the property until the late 20th century.
Wressle Castle is a ruined palace-fortress in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, built for Thomas Percy in the 1390s. It is privately owned and it is usually open to the public for a few days each year. Wressle Castle originally consisted of four ranges built around a central courtyard; there was a tower at each corner, and the structure was entered through a gatehouse in the east wall, facing the village.
Caus Castle is a ruin of a hill fort and medieval castle in the civil parish of Westbury in the English county of Shropshire. It is situated up on the eastern foothills of the Long Mountain guarding the route from Shrewsbury, Shropshire to Montgomery, Powys, on the border between England and Wales. It was destroyed during the English Civil War and has been in ruins since.
Weeting Castle is a ruined, medieval manor house near the village of Weeting in Norfolk, England. It was built around 1180 by Hugh de Plais, and comprised a three-storey tower, a substantial hall, and a service block, with a separate kitchen positioned near the house. A moat was later dug around the site in the 13th century. The house was not fortified, although it drew on architectural features typically found in castles of the period, and instead formed a very large, high-status domestic dwelling. It was probably intended to resemble the hall at Castle Acre Castle, owned by Hugh's feudal lord, Hamelin de Warenne.
Penhallam is the site of a fortified manor house near Jacobstow in Cornwall, England. There was probably an earlier, 11th-century ringwork castle on the site, constructed by Tryold or his son, Richard fitz Turold in the years after the Norman invasion of 1066. Their descendants, in particular Andrew de Cardinham, created a substantial, sophisticated manor house at Penhallam between the 1180s and 1234, building a quadrangle of ranges facing onto an internal courtyard, surrounded by a moat and external buildings. The Cardinhams may have used the manor house for hunting expeditions in their nearby deer park. By the 14th century, the Cardinham male line had died out and the house was occupied by tenants. The surrounding manor was broken up and the house itself fell into decay and robbed for its stone. Archaeological investigations between 1968 and 1973 uncovered its foundations, unaltered since the medieval period, and the site is now managed by English Heritage and open to visitors.
Beverston Castle, also known as Beverstone Castle or Tetbury Castle, was constructed as a medieval stone fortress in the village of Beverston, Gloucestershire, England. The property is a mix of manor house, various small buildings, extensive gardens and the medieval ruins of the fortified building. The castle was founded in 1229 by Maurice de Gaunt.
Monmouth Castle is a castle close to the centre of the town of Monmouth, the county town of Monmouthshire, on a hill above the River Monnow in south-east Wales.
Wilton Castle is an early 19th-century mansion, built on the site of a medieval castle, now converted into residential apartments, situated at Wilton, in Redcar and Cleveland, North Yorkshire, England. It is a Grade II listed building.
Apley Hall is an English Gothic Revival house located in the parish of Stockton near Bridgnorth, Shropshire. The building was completed in 1811 with adjoining property of 180 acres (0.73 km2) of private parkland beside the River Severn. It was once home to the Whitmore & Foster families. The Hall is a Grade II* listed building claimed as one of the largest in the county of Shropshire.
Rye House in Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire is a former fortified manor house, located in what is now the Lee Valley Regional Park. The gatehouse is the only surviving part of the structure and is a Grade I listed building. The house gave its name to the Rye House Plot, an assassination attempt of 1683 that was a violent consequence of the Exclusion Crisis in British politics at the end of the 1670s.
Apley is a hamlet and civil parish in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England.
Hadley and Leegomery is a civil parish in the district of Telford and Wrekin, Shropshire, England. It contains ten listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, one is at Grade II*, the middle of the three grades, and the others are at Grade II, the lowest grade. Hadley and Leegomery are areas in the town of Telford. The most important building in the parish was Apley Castle, but this has been largely demolished and redeveloped, and what remains of it is listed at Grade II*. Other structures associated with the building are listed, and the other listed buildings in the parish include two former mills, an 18th-century house, two locks and a bridge associated with the now disused Shrewsbury Canal, a public house, and a war memorial.
Snape Castle is a semi-fortified manor house in the village of Snape, North Yorkshire, England. The castle is 3 miles (5 km) south of Bedale and 19 miles (31 km) north of Ripon. At the time of Henry VIII, John Leland described it as "...a goodly castel in a valley [be]longing to the Lorde Latimer.." The castle is now a private residence, and is a grade I listed building.
Margaret Baxter or Margaret Charlton was a noble born English religious nonconformist during the English Civil War. She became a follower and later wife and patron of the preacher Richard Baxter.