Tattershall Castle
Tattershall Castle is a castle in the village of Tattershall in the English county of Lincolnshire , about 19 km northeast of Sleaford . It is administered by the National Trust .
history
Tattershall Castle's origins go back to a stone castle or fortified mansion built in 1231 at the behest of Robert de Tattershall . This first building was rebuilt in brick between 1430 and 1450 for Ralph Cromwell , the Lord High Treasurer , and greatly expanded.
Brick castles are less common in England than those made of stone or earth and wood. When brick was chosen as a building material, it was often for aesthetic reasons or because it was modern. The trend towards the use of bricks was introduced by Flemish weavers. There was a lot of natural stone near Tattershall Castle, but Cromwell chose brick. Over 700,000 bricks were used to build the castle, which has been described as "the finest piece of medieval brickwork in England".
Lord Cromwell's castle still features the 40-meter-high Great Tower and moat . It is believed that the three parade rooms of the castle were once wonderfully furnished and that the bedrooms were heated with immense, Gothic open chimneys with decorated mantels and furnished with tapestries. It has been said that the castle was an early mansion designed to look like a fortress. Cromwell died in 1456 and the castle initially fell to his niece, Joan Stanhope , but was then confiscated by the Crown after the death of her husband Humphry Bourchier, 1st Baron Cromwell . In 1560 Sir Henry Sidney got the castle back and sold it to Lord Clinton , the later Earl of Lincoln . The castle remained in this family until 1693. Then it fell to the Fortesque family , but was then neglected.
In 1910 it was put up for sale. Their greatest treasures, the medieval open chimneys, were still intact. When an American bought them, they were torn out and packed for shipping to America. Lord Curzon of Kedleston stepped in five minutes out of twelve. He bought the castle and tried to get the fireplaces back. After a nationwide search, they were found in London and brought back. He had the castle renovated and left it to the National Trust when he died in 1925. Lord Curzon had the restorations carried out in 1911–1914. Tattershall Castle is now one of the three most important brick castles still standing from the mid-15th century.
The experience of Tattershall Castle led Lord Curzon to campaign for a law to protect the national heritage of Britain. This was realized with the Ancient Monuments Consolidation and Amendment Act of 1913.
construction
The layout of the castle is roughly rectangular. It is enclosed by an inner moat, which in turn is surrounded by an outer moat. The inner courtyard was that of the original 13th century castle and the original entrance was on the north side towards the west end.
The outer courtyard between the outer and inner moats housed the stables. In the middle courtyard, which was originally accessible via a bridge from the outer courtyard, there was a gatehouse and a guardhouse. Today the castle is accessible through this middle courtyard. The inner moat encloses the inner courtyard, where the Great Tower and the kitchens (now demolished) were.
The Great Tower
The tower has a diagonal of about 20 meters. There are separate entrances to the basement, the ground floor (living room) and the spiral staircase to the upper floors. This suggests that the basement and ground floor served as communal accommodation, while the three upper rooms were an independent private apartment. The construction was very simple: there were four storeys, the usable area slightly increasing towards the top due to the decreasing wall thickness. From the position of the open chimneys you can see that the rooms should not be divided, but were kept as individual rooms on each floor. One of the four corner towers contains the spiral staircase; the other three had separate sleeping chambers on each level.
The cellar was used to store spices and other kitchen supplies. It is believed to have served as a prison during the English Civil War .
On the first floor was the living room; this is where the land tenants came to pay their rent. Today, civil weddings with up to 90 guests can be carried out in the living room.
The first floor of the private apartment was the knight's hall , where guests were entertained.
The second floor was the audience room, where only the finest guests were admitted. A brick-vaulted corridor led to a small waiting room in front of the audience room, which today houses the Flemish pictorial works that Lord Curzon bought.
The third floor was probably the private bedroom into which the lord retired at night.
Above the bedroom is the battlemented roof walkway, which offers a good overview of the Lincolnshire landscape - to Boston in the south and Lincoln in the north. the corner towers are no longer accessible today.
The brick foundations south of the Great Tower, which extend into the moat, show the location of the 15th century kitchens.
Today the old guard house (about 100 m northeast of the tower) is a souvenir shop and there are a number of peacocks on the site .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s M. W. Thompson: Tattershall Castle Guide . The National Trust.
- ↑ a b c d e Adrian Pettifer: English Castles: A Guide by Counties . Boydell & Brewer, 2002. pp. 145-147.
- ↑ Stephen Friar: The Sutton Companion to Castles . Sutton Publishing, Stroud 2003. ISBN 978-0-7509-3994-2 . Pp. 38-40.
- ↑ a b c d e f Tattershall Castle . National Trust . Retrieved July 16, 2015.
- ^ Jo Makel: How Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire helped save UK heritage . BBC News Online - Lincolnshire. June 13, 2013. Retrieved July 16, 2015.
- ^ Tattershall Castle . Castles of England. Retrieved July 16, 2015.
Web links
- Tattershall Castle on the National Trust website
- Tattershall Castle at Images of England
- Tattershall Castle as a 3D model in SketchUp's 3D warehouse
Coordinates: 53 ° 6 ′ 4.8 ″ N , 0 ° 11 ′ 33.4 ″ W.