Sizergh Castle

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Sizergh Castle, Pele Tower and Tudor House

Sizergh Castle & Garden is a castle and mansion and extensive gardens in Sizergh , Cumbria in northern England . It is located about four miles south of Kendal and is a protected property of the National Trust .

The Gervase Deincourt family came into possession of the land through a gift from King Henry II in the 1170s . Through the marriage of Elizabeth Deincourt with Sir William de Stirkeland in 1239, all the property passed into the hands of the Strickland family that to which up to her foundation in 1950, the National Trust owned. The family still lives on the site.

The heart of the medieval castle is the 14th century Pele Tower (a kind of keep ), which is surrounded by the Tudor House . The tower is over 20 meters high and its walls are 3 meters thick. Around 1450, the Great Hall and two more wings were added, which made life more comfortable. In Elizabethan times, the building was equipped with oak furniture and oak wall and ceiling paneling, some of which were decorated with elaborate inlay work . Some of the furnishings are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum . At the end of the 20th century, the museum began to restore the paneling piece by piece. As early as 1770 the great hall was expanded in the Georgian style .

Like many other medieval castles, Sizergh Castle is said to be a ghost . It is said that the castle lady starved to death after her husband locked her in a room and left the castle for a long time. They are said to be heard screaming occasionally.

Sizergh Castle and part of the garden

The whole area covers 6.4 square kilometers (1,600 hectares), at the heart of which is the garden with two lakes and a recently award-winning rock garden . This property dates from 1336 when an Edward III permit . Sir Walter Strickland allowed the land around Sizergh to be surrounded as his exclusive park. The rock garden, added in 1926, is the largest limestone rock garden owned by the National Trust. The garden is part of the National Collection of hardy ferns ( fern plants ) and is known for its design by planting the plants with different leaf colors and shapes.

Rock garden of Sizergh Castle with typically depicted different leaf colors of the plants

There are some great paintings on display in the castle including a portrait of Queen Mary and her daughter Princess Louisa Maria by Alexis Simon Belle .

From April to October, parts of the building and the gardens are open to the public for a fee.

literature

  • Stephen Lacey: Gardens of the National Trust. Anova Books, London 2011, ISBN 1-9078-9209-5 .

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sizergh Castle
  2. ^ Edward Corp: Belle, Alexis-Simon (1674-1734). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004

Coordinates: 54 ° 17 ′ 4 "  N , 2 ° 46 ′ 19"  W.