Dilston Castle

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Dilston Castle 2005

Dilston Castle is a ruined castle in Dilston near the village of Corbridge in the English county of Northumberland . English Heritage has listed it as a Grade I Historic Building and is a Scheduled Monument .

In the 15th century, Sir William Claxton had a three-story residential tower built on the site of an earlier Peel Tower .

The Radclyffe family

In 1621, the residential tower fell to the Radclyffe family through the marriage of Edward Radclyffe to the Dilston heiress . The Catholic Radclyffes had a private chapel built next to the tower in 1616, which is now also listed as a historic building and a scheduled monument.

1622 was Sir Francis Radclyffe residential tower in a new mansion integrate the Dilston Hall was called.

A later Francis Radclyffe supported the royalist camp in the English Civil War , and all of its lands, including Dilston Hall, fell to the state. They were returned to the family during the Stuart Restoration . James Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater , wanted to replace the old house with a new mansion in 1709, but it was never completed. James Radclyffe participated in the first Jacobite rising in 1715 , was convicted of high treason and executed in 1716. The ghost of his wife is said to still haunt the castle ruins today.

His brother Charles , who was also involved in the rebellion, was able to flee to France , but, like his brother, was charged with high treason and convicted. He returned to England in support of the second Jacobite revolt in 1745 , was captured and executed in 1746 under the death sentence passed against him 30 years earlier.

The lands of the Earls of Derwentwater after 1716

The 3rd Earl's conviction of high treason would normally have resulted in his lands (including Dilston Hall) falling to the Crown. However, in 1712 he had signed a marriage contract that granted him access to these lands only for life. The family's possessions fell to his two-year-old son John , who however died at the age of 18. After his death in 1731 these possessions would actually have passed to his uncle Charles, who was still living in exile at the time, but he was also convicted of high treason in 1716. After him the lands would have passed to his son James Bartholomew Radclyffe, 4th Earl of Newburgh . But in 1731 a law (No. 4 Geo. I c.21) was passed in Parliament, which " clarified " (improved) a law passed by Queen Anne (No. 7 Anne, c.5) on naturalization , so that in Foreign-born children of those convicted of treason were excluded from British citizenship. This ensured that James and all of his descendants were excluded from the inheritance as foreigners were not allowed to own land in England.

The Forfeit Estates Commission had offered the rights to the lands of the Earls of Derwentwater for sale in July 1723, as John Radclyffe had died without male heirs. It was bought by William Smith of Billiter Square in London for £ 1060. The sale was not legally valid because the original sales contract was canceled, replaced by a new one in the presence of only two (instead of the minimum of four required) commissioners, and neither was the sale - as prescribed - was written out again. Accordingly, the sale was annulled by law 1731. According to the Commission's registrar, the purchase was made in the name and for the account of a group that included John Bond , Sir Joseph Eyles , Sir Thomas Hales and Matthew White . This was a speculative purchase as it was based on the non-exercise of a privilege [of the original owner family], but the way things went it would have provided Smith and his associates with property that would have been worth £ 5,000 at the time of sale and £ 6,000 at the time Time at which the sale was called into question. The commissioners responsible for the void sale, Denis Bond and John Birch , were expelled from Parliament for their role in this affair, Sir Eyles and Sir Hales, who had signed the original sales contract and whose names were on the definitive sales contract, were not punished.

The 1731 Act included the Court of Exchequer with the sale of the lands, but they were not sold. Instead, it was decided in the Greenwich Hospital Act 1735 that the Crown's income from these lands (after deducting various annuities and interest on the mortgage loan ) should be used to complete the buildings of Greenwich Hospital in London. Another law was passed in 1738 specifying how to deal with the difficulties arising from the implementation of the first law. After the execution of Charles Radclyffe in 1746, his eldest son turned to the king with a petition to grant him the lands. But the commissioners at Greenwich Hospital declined his requests because he had not claimed his rights with the Forfeit Estates Commission and was also a foreigner. Failing to raise the cost of a lawsuit against this, he asked the King to pay the costs for him, and his mother, Charlotte Maria Radclyffe, 3rd Countess of Newburgh , asked the King to pay the costs for his brother and three sisters. Accordingly, a compromise was reached whereby Lord Kinniard (the eldest son of Charles Radclyffe) would receive £ 24,000 from the hospital commissioners and a further £ 6,000 to be shared among his descendants. Otherwise they would all have become penniless after their mother's death.

After the Countess's death in 1755, Lord Kinnaird became the 4th Earl of Newburgh and lived until 1786. The 5th Earl of Newburgh then applied to Parliament for the reassignment of the lands but only received an annuity of £ 2,500 to him until his Death in 1814 and then paid to his widow until her death in 1861. The hospital's annual income from the lands had grown to £ 15,000 by the 1780s. The lands remained in the hands of the Greenwich Hospital Commission until they were awarded to the Admiralty Board by the Greenwich Hospital Act 1865 . The Admiralty Board then sold her to Wentworth Blackett Beaumont, 1st Baron Allendale . Dilston Hall - unfinished as it was when the 3rd Earl was executed - served as the apartment of the Greenwich Hospital steward, the commission ordered its demolition in 1765, leaving only the tower block and chapel.

Restoration of the castle

The restoration of the buildings began in 2001. They were opened to the public in 2003.

In 2004 £ 220,000 was given to start restoration work on the 17th century bridge near the castle ( Lord's Bridge ) and to secure the Jacobean buildings with paved floors on the castle grounds.

Recent excavations have uncovered the remains of the demolished Dilston Hall and its seventeenth-century service wing. Evidence of medieval structures was also found at this point. The restoration of the castle, financed by the Heritage Lottery Fund , included z. B. the construction of a new roof, the repair of the mortar tapes, the construction of a new wooden ceiling and a staircase as access to the upper floors.

In the castle grounds is also Dilston College , a boarding school for young adults with learning difficulties. The college was originally a circuit hall until Lord Rix , who has a learning disabled daughter himself, converted it into a college.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russell Ash: Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain . Reader's Digest Association, 1973. ISBN 978-0-340165-97-3 . P. 342.
  2. ↑ a b c d H. HE Craster: A History of Northumberland . Volume X. Corbridge. Pp. 295-303.
  3. ↑ a b Statutes at Large . IV. Edition 1758. 5 Geo. II, c.23.
  4. ^ A b c Report [on] the sale of the estate of James late Earl of Derwentwater in Reports of Committees of the House of Commons . Volume I ( 1716-1733 ). London 1776. pp. 353-357.
  5. ↑ Members expelled from the House of Commons since the Restoration . Election Demon. Retrieved March 10, 2016.
  6. ^ Statutes at Large . V. edition 1758. 8 Geo. II, c.29 and 11 Geo. II, c.30.
  7. ^ Statutes at Large . VI. Edition 1758. 22 Geo. II, c.52.

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Web links

Commons : Dilston Castle  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 54 ° 57 '54 "  N , 2 ° 2' 20.4"  W.