Chilham Castle is a Jacobeanmanor house and keep in the village of Chilham, between Ashford and Canterbury in the county of Kent, England. The keep is of Norman origin and dates to 1174, although it may have been built on an older Anglo-Saxon fortification. The manor house was completed in 1616 for Sir Dudley Digges. Various renovations and improvements to the Manor House and surrounding gardens took place in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The polygonal keep of the Norman Castle, the oldest building in the village, dates from 1174 and is still inhabited today, making it one of the oldest dwellings in Great Britain. It was said to have been built for King Henry II, although archaeological excavations carried out in the 1920s suggest that it stands on the foundations of a much older Anglo-Saxon fortification, possibly dating from the seventh century. In June 1320, Chilham Castle was the venue for a reception hosted by Bartholomew de Badlesmere for Edward II and his entourage when they were travelling through Dover en route for France.[1]
The Jacobean building, within sight of the keep, was completed in 1616 for Sir Dudley Digges on a hexagonal plan, with five angled ranges and the sixth left open. It has battlemented parapets, clustered facetted columnar brick chimneys and corner towers with squared ogee cappings.[needs context]
The Victorian tradition that this house was designed by Inigo Jones[2] is not credited by architectural historians.[3] Indeed, Nicholas Stone, a master mason who had worked under Jones's direction at Holyrood Palace in 1616, and at the Whitehall Banqueting House, was commissioned to add a funerary chapel to Chilham Church for Dudley Digges to contain Stone's funerary monument to Lady Digges in the early 1630s.[4] If any traces of Jones were discernible at Chilham Castle, Nicholas Stone might be considered as a candidate.[5] It is, nevertheless, one of the finer mansions in the south-east of England and commands exceptional views across the valley of the River Stour, Kent.
Chilham Castle: the open rear range of the hexagonal plan, open to lawn and terraces
The gardens, originally thought to have been laid out by John Tradescant the Elder, were redesigned twice in the 18th century. First, under the London banker James Colebrooke,[6] (who bought the estate from the Digges family) fine vistas were created stretching to the river and then under Thomas Heron (who acquired the estate from Colebrooke's son Robert),[7]Capability Brown made further recommendations for change, some of which were implemented.
Chilham Castle was purchased by James Wildman in 1794[8] and in 1816 was inherited by his son James Beckford Wildman, who sold it in 1861 because of falling income after emancipation of the slaves on the family estates in the West Indies. Plans of Chilham showing some of the substantial changes made to the building by David Brandon for Charles Hardy in 1862 and by Herbert Baker for mining magnate Sir Edmund and Lady Davis in the early 1920s are conserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The present terracing, altered in the 18th and 19th centuries, leads down to a fishing lake dating from the time of Charles Hardy's son Charles Stewart Hardy in the 1860s. The walls to the grounds date mostly from the 18th century, although the two gatehouses were only added in the early 1920s, again replacing a very different 19th-century one.
The site now hosts the Chilham Park Equestrian Centre.[citation needed]
In 1965, Chilham Castle was used for part of the filming of The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders starring Kim Novak, Leo McKern and Angela Lansbury. In 1985, the site featured in an episode of 1980s police drama Dempsey & Makepeace as Makepeace's family home. The episode was titled 'Cry God For Harry' and most of the hour-long episode was filmed in the castle and its grounds. In 1989, it also featured in the first episode of the ITV adventure game show Interceptor produced by Chatsworth Television who were responsible for the earlier Treasure Hunt series. A medieval joust was being held there and a contestant was required to take part in order to progress further in the show.
In 1994, the castle featured in an episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot (ITV), as Simeon Lee's manor house Gorston Hall. It was also used in the 2006 TV episode, The Moving Finger (part of Agatha Christie's Marple) as the magnificent home of Cardew Pye. The rest of the village also features in the film.[10]
On April 13, 2021, the castle was put up for sale for £15 million.[11]
Viscount Massereene is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1660, along with the subsidiary title of Baron Loughneagh. From 1665 to 1816 the Skeffington Baronetcy of Fisherwick was attached to the viscountcy and from 1756 to 1816 the Viscounts also held the title of Earl of Massereene. Since 1843 the peerages are united with titles of Viscount Ferrard, of Oriel and Baron Oriel, both in the Peerage of Ireland, and Baron Oriel, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The Viscount also holds the subsidiary titles of Baron Loughneagh (1660) and Baron Oriel (1790) in the Peerage of Ireland and Baron Oriel (1821) in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. As Baron Oriel, he sat in the House of Lords until 1999.
Raynham Hall is a country house in Norfolk, England. For nearly 400 years it has been the seat of the Townshend family. The hall gave its name to the five estate villages, known as The Raynhams, and is reported to be haunted, providing the scene for possibly the most famous ghost photo of all time, the famous Brown Lady descending the staircase. However, the ghost has been allegedly seen infrequently since the photo was taken. Its most famous resident was Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount Townshend (1674–1738), leader in the House of Lords.
Arthur Chichester, 3rd Earl of Donegall was an Irish nobleman and soldier.
Powderham Castle is a fortified manor house in Exminster, Devon, 6 miles (9.7 km) south of Exeter and 1⁄4 mile (0.4 km) north-east of the village of Kenton, where the main public entrance gates are located. It is a Grade I listed building. The park and gardens are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.
John Clotworthy, 1st Viscount Massereene was a prominent Anglo-Irish politician.
Chilham is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Ashford in Kent, England. It sits on the north bank of the Great Stour around 5+1⁄2 miles (8.9 km) to the southwest of Canterbury and 7 miles (11 km) northeast of Ashford. It is a mostly agricultural parish, with settlement clustered around Chilham village centre, which is next to the Grade I-listed Chilham Castle. Well-preserved roads and mostly residential listed buildings in the centre have led to its use as a location in television and film. Also lying within the civil parish is the smaller linear settlement of Shottenden, which is situated 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) west of Chilham.
Edward Digges was an English barrister and colonist who became a premium tobacco planter and official in the Virginia colony. The son of the English politician Dudley Digges represented the colony before the Virginia Company of London and the royal government, as well as served for two decades on the colony's Council of State. Digges served as interim Colonial Governor of Virginia from March 1655 to December 1656, and for longer periods as the colony's receiver general and auditor-general. He is also known for planting mulberry trees and promoting the silk industry in the colony.
John David Clotworthy Whyte-Melville Foster Skeffington, 14th Viscount Massereene and 7th Viscount Ferrard is a British peer.
John Clotworthy Talbot Foster Whyte-Melville-Skeffington, 13th Viscount Massereene and 6th Viscount Ferrard DL was a British politician and landowner. He was also Baron of Loughneagh, 6th Baron Oriel, and 6th Baron Oriel, and served as a Deputy Lieutenant for County Antrim. He succeeded his father in 1956 and regularly attended the House of Lords.
Sir Dudley Digges was an English diplomat and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1610 and 1629. Digges was also a "Virginia adventurer," an investor who ventured his capital in the Virginia Company of London; his son Edward Digges would go on to be Governor of Virginia. Dudley Digges was responsible for the rebuilding of Chilham Castle, completed in around 1616.
Gilling Castle is a Grade I listed country house near Gilling East, North Yorkshire, England.
Sir Edward Hungerford, KB, was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1659 and 1702. He was famous for his profligate ways and sold thirty manors, including the family seat at Farleigh Hungerford, to fund his extravagant lifestyle. He founded Hungerford Market at Charing Cross as a commercial venture.
Sir James Edward Colebrooke, 1st Baronet sat in the House of Commons from 1751 to 1761.
Antrim Castle or Massereene Castle was a fortified mansion in Antrim, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, on the banks of the Sixmilewater River. It was built in stages between 1613 and 1662. It was destroyed by fire in 1922 and finally demolished in the 1970s. All that remains are a slightly raised grassed platform as well as a freestanding Italian stair tower built in 1887, and a gatehouse built around 1818 with twin neo-Tudor towers, with older connecting walls. The gardens are a popular tourist attraction on Randalstown Road, Antrim.
Nicholas Stone was an English sculptor and architect. In 1619 he was appointed master-mason to James I, and in 1626 to Charles I.
Algernon William John Clotworthy Skeffington, 12th Viscount Massereene and 5th Viscount Ferrard, DSO was British Army officer and an Ulster Unionist member of the Senate of Northern Ireland from 1921 to 1929. During this period he served as Deputy Leader of the Senate and Parliamentary Secretary in the Department of the Prime Minister.
By-elections to the House of Lords occur when vacancies arise among seats assigned to hereditary peers due to death, resignation, or disqualification. Candidates for these by-elections are limited to holders of hereditary peerages, and their electorates are made up of sitting Lords; in most cases the electorate are those sitting hereditary peers of the same party affiliation as the departed peer.
James Colebrooke was a mercer, banker, and citizen of London.
Clotworthy is a surname derived from Clotworthy near Wembworthy, Devon, England. The family inherited the manor of Rashleigh in Wembworthy in the 16th century. Sir Hugh Clotworthy (1569–1630) gained land in Ireland in the Plantation of Ulster and built Antrim Castle there. Clotworthy was used as a given name by his descendants.
John Skeffington, 2nd Viscount Massereene was an Anglo-Irish politician, official, and peer. He was one of the leading Presbyterians in Ireland during his lifetime.
References
↑ Haines, Roy Martin (2003). King Edward II: Edward of Caernarfon His Life, His Reign and Its Aftermath, 1284-1330. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press. p.120.
↑ Sir Banister Fletcher, A History of Architecture on the Comparative Method (1901:407) listed Chilham among Jones' works, apparently the last historian to do so: "Many buildings have been attributed to Jones with very slight authority. They include Chilham Castle in Kent..." DNB reports (s.v. "Inigo Jones"); George Mabbitt (Mabbitt, "Chilham: The Unique Village," 1999Archived 2007-07-10 at the Wayback Machine ), alludes to original plans in the Royal Institute of British Architects; this is apparently an error, but there is one unsigned outline plan, apparently most ancient, now in the keeping of the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.
↑ Neither by Howard Colvin, A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects, 1600-1840 3rd ed. (Yale University Press) 1995, who makes no attribution of seventeenth-century Chilham, nor by Nicholas Cooper, Houses of the Gentry, 1480-1680 (Yale University Press) 1999, who discusses Chilham briefly (p. 33) and illustrates both new and old castles (p. 32, figs 19 and 20).
↑ Colvin 1995, s.v. "Stone, Nicholas"; Stone's chapel was demolished in 1863.
↑ John Newman, "Nicholas Stone's Goldsmiths' Hall: Design and Practice in the 1630s" Architectural History14 (1971:30-39, 138-141) discusses Stone's role in the dissemination of Jones' architectural ideas in England.
↑ Robert's domed mausoleum, designed by Sir Robert Taylor, 1755, attached to the chancel of the parish church, was demolished in 1862 (Colvin 1995, s.v. "Taylor, Sir Robert").
↑ ( "History - The Owners". The Chilham Castle website. Archived from the original on 10 August 2011. Retrieved 1 September 2011.) states:"In 1949 Chilham was offered for sale by auction with its remaining 400 acres and bought by “Jock“ Skeffington for £94,000. With his wife Annabelle McNamara née Lewis, he lived there until his death in 1992. In 1956 on the death of his father, Skeffington became 13th Viscount Massereene and Baron of Loughneagh, 6th Viscount Ferrard and Baron Oriel of Collon in Ireland and Baron Oriel of Ferrard in the United Kingdom."
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