Ashby de la Zouch Castle
Ashby de la Zouch Castle is a ruined castle in the town of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in the English county of Leicestershire . The ruins have been listed as Grade I Historic Buildings by English Heritage and are a Scheduled Monument . They are managed by English Heritage.
history
Origins
The first building on the property was a Norman fortified manor house , which for from the Brittany stammden Alan de la Zouche was built, who came to England 1,172th Over the next three centuries, it was expanded by his descendants, but after the Zouch line ended in the 14th century, the castle changed hands several times. In 1461 the castle returned to the Crown after the then owner, James Butler, 5th Earl of Ormond , was executed after the Battle of Towton .
The castle remained in the hands of the crown for a few years until King Edward IV loaned it to William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings . William Hastings received in 1474 a royal permission for fixing ( English license to crenellate ) and immediately left extension and improvement work on the castle perform. The permit also allows him to convert 12 km² of surrounding land into a park. The most important building from this period was the 27 meter high Hastings Tower . It has a rectangular floor plan measuring 14.1 meters by 12.3 meters and the walls on the ground floor are almost 2.7 meters thick. The tower had four main floors with an extension on the northeast side that had seven floors. The tower and the kitchens had their own well.
There was also a great hall and other parade rooms for entertainment that were on the north side of the main tower. In 1644 a visitor described ornate glass windows with coats of arms. William Hastings' descendants expanded the castle and estate, e.g. B. with large landscaped parks and gardens.
William Hastings had a chapel built in the northeast corner of the castle. It was originally lavishly furnished and richly decorated, but was stripped of almost all sculptures during the Reformation , in the 16th century, when Hastings' family converted to Protestantism . To this day, works of art such as The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donors or the Donne Triptych by Hans Memling from around 1478 have survived from the earlier period . There are Hastings' sister Elizabeth and her husband Sir John Donne on either side of the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus. Today the chapel still serves as a burial chapel for the family. Funerals have also recently been held there. B. by Barbara Abney-Hastings (1919-2002), Peter Abney-Hastings (1924-2002) and their daughter Mary Flowers (born Mary Joy Abney-Hastings, 1957-1997).
Many royal visitors were guests in the castle, e. B. Henry VII , James I 1603 and Charles I 1645. Mary Stuart was imprisoned there for a period in 1569 under the supervision of the Earl of Huntingdon, Henry Hastings , and the Earl of Shrewsbury, George Talbot .
English Civil War
During the English Civil War , Ashby de la Zouch Castle was a royalist stronghold . Even if the heir to the castle at the time, Ferdinando Hastings, 6th Earl of Huntingdon , was outwardly neutral, members of his family, especially his brother Henry Hastings , were ardent royalists. Ashby de la Zouch Castle thus formed an important link between the royalist south-west and north of England - especially when the rest of Leicestershire supported the parliamentary cause. In 1643 Henry Hastings had many additional fortifications added to the castle and presumably also had the tunnels built that connect many of the buildings and parts of the castle. He was appointed High Sheriff of Leicestershire by the King and was involved in many skirmishes between enemy forces, e.g. B. the Battle of Hopton Heath , a small battle at the Cotes Bridge near Loughborough . He later lost an eye to a pistol shot in an exchange of fire at Bagworth, all in 1643. Later that year his troops captured and lost the town of Burton-upon-Trent .
As the war progressed and the royalist fortunes turned, Ashby de la Zouch Castle - already involved in fighting in 1644 - was besieged from September 1645 until it was surrendered in March 1646 . Hastings, who had been appointed first Baron Loughborough on October 23, 1643 for his services to King Charles I, left the castle with honor. The handover agreement stipulated that the facility should be razed and the remaining Hastings family should move to Donington Hall near Derby . The outer fortifications were immediately leveled, but the main part of the castle and towers remained in place until 1648, when most of them were destroyed by parliamentary forces.
After the civil war
The knight's hall was rebuilt and adapted sometime between the 14th and 17th centuries. An engraving by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck shows the knight's hall with a new roof and new windows, apparently repaired after the civil war, but in the 19th century it fell into ruin again .
The castle ruins became famous after Sir Walter Scott's novella Ivanhoe was published in 1819. The success of the novella meant that it soon became a popular tourist attraction.
today
The castle is still a popular tourist destination today managed by English Heritage . Most of the ruins were protected from further decay and the property was completely planted with grass. You can climb the Hastings Tower (98 steps) and explore the tunnel from the kitchen basement to the Hastings Tower, which was probably built during the Civil War.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Ashby de la Zouch Castle . Pastscape.org.uk. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
- ↑ Castle ruins (including 2 isolated towers at south east and south west angles of outer wall) . In: The National Heritage List for England . English Heritage. 2011. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 25, 2015.
- ^ Ashby Castle and associated formal garden . In: The National Heritage List for England . English Heritage . 2011. Archived from the original on July 14, 2014. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
- ↑ Ashby-de-la-Zouch Castle . CastleUK. Archived from the original on January 3, 2008. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
- ↑ a b c Ashby de la Zouch in Encyclopedia Britannica . 11th edition. New York 1911.
- ↑ Plantagenet Somerset Fry: The David & Charles Book of Castles . David & Charles, Newton Abbot 1980. ISBN 0-7153-7976-3 . P. 180.
- ↑ a b c d e visitor information from English Heritage.
- ↑ a b Ashby de la Zouch Castle . English Heritage. Retrieved November 27, 2015.
- ^ Robert Ashton: Counter Revolution: The Second Civil War and its Origins 1646-48 . Yale University Press, New Haven 1994. p. 466.
literature
- Anthony Herbert: Ashby Castle. In: Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological Society . Issue 17 (1931-1932), pp. 197-204. ( PDF ; 385 kB).
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 44 ′ 43.6 " N , 1 ° 27 ′ 56.5" W.