English Heritage
Remains of a Dominican friary, sited in the centre of Gloucester, and finished about 1270. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the church was shortened and converted into a Tudor mansion, and the outbuildings into a cloth factory. Later additions have been stripped away so that the medieval fabric is again visible. The site is managed by Gloucester Council who use the church for events.
The church interior is well worth a look, with its surviving stonework and arches, and the interesting roof. Also see the upstairs of the building (south range) on the other side of the courtyard, which is regarded as the oldest surviving purpose built library in the country. It has original roof beams and niches where the monks worked. Note the scissor-brace roofs.
Before travelling, check the EH website for the restricted opening times. Access October-March seems to be by appointment only.
With luck, using a satnav + postcode will take you to a car park outside the friary.
Category: English Heritage
Roche Abbey, South Yorkshire
English Heritage
Roche Abbey was founded in 1147 and housed Cistertian monks till it was dissolved on the orders of Henry VIII. The buildings were despoiled in 1538, but the walls of the north and south transepts remain impressive, and low walls remain elsewhere.
The remains of a gatehouse stand beside open ground in front of the main site.
A fee is payable to walk on the site but the standing walls can be seen from a path running alongside. Access to the site is by a steep, narrow and bumpy lane, navigable by car.
Launceston Castle, Cornwall
English Heritage
Originally a Norman castle, the castle was rebuilt in stone in the 12th century, and substantially rebuilt by Richard of Cornwall from 1227, including a high central tower inside the circular wall on top of the mound.
Richard’s son moved the administration elsewhere and the castle became partially disused and ruinous. Parts continued to be used for assizes and a prison. It was occupied during the civil war and afterwards stripped for building materials. Parts were used as a prison till 1842, and the site was used as a base during WWII.
The outlines of buildings in the lower bailey can be seen in the grass. Parts of the keep and walls still stand, and the inner tower can be climbed.
The castle is well worth a visit if you are in Launceston.
The castle is on an elevated site in the middle of the town. Parkng is available in pay car parks.
Sutton Scarsdale Hall, Yorkshire
The house stands at the edge of the small village of Sutton Scarsdale, on top of a hill.
The present house, the fourth to stand on the site was built in 1724-29. It contains elements of the earlier houses. In 1919 the house was sold off and bought for architectural salvage, being stripped of all moveable parts including the roof. Some room interiors ended up in America and were used as movie sets.
Before 1919 the house, as shown in surviving photographs, had impressive interiors and plasterwork. Today it is a sad-looking ruin in need of stabilisation. None of the internal walls retain plaster other than a few fragments of fine moulded plasterwork in the principal rooms.
No trace of the gardens remains.
A church stands a few feet from the house. Apparently the church is still in use.
Visiting – you can park behind the house after driving down a lane. There is no charge, but when I visited the house was surrounded by Heras fencing and there was aluminium scaffolding inside the walls, restricting views.
Lindisfarne/Holy Island, Northumberland.
The low-lying tidal island lies just off the coast of Northumberland, and is connected to the mainland by a causeway that is flooded by the tide twice a day.
The island is most famous for its priory, founded during the dark ages and abandoned during the dissolution of the monasteries. St Aidan, St. Cuthbert and the Lindisfarne Gospels are associated with the Priory.
There is also a castle (National Trust) on a rock forming the highest point of the island. It was built after the dissolution of the priory. After becoming disused as a fort, it was converted into a holiday home in the 1900’s by the architect Edward Lutyens for magazine owner Edward Hudson. The castle is interesting and worth a visit. If you have time, walk out to the Gertrude Jekyll castle garden, and the nearby lime-kilns.
The ruined priory (English Heritage) is in the village and can be visited (chargeable). Entrance into the churchyard is free, and it is worth looking inside the adjoining church. Among other things, it contains a striking wooden sculpture of six monks carrying a coffin.
There was another fort next to the harbour, but only a few fragments of wall now remain.
Visiting – there are boat cruises to the island, or you can drive there. Beware the tides, which restrict when you can come and go. Be aware also that the police and coastguard take a dim view of people who ignore the warnings and get themselves trapped on the causeway by the incoming tide. There is a village on the island, with the usual amenities.
Brodsworth Hall & Gardens, Yorkshire
English Heritage
Brodsworth Hall was built for Charles Thellusson in the 1860’s, and the gardens were laid out at the same time. An existing house on the estate was demolished. The house has a symmetrical plan with a lower servants’ wing projecting to form a T-shape.
Internally, the house has an impressive Italianate hall and reception rooms. The family and guest bedrooms are comfortably furnished while the servants’ wing is much plainer. The house and its contents have not been radically changed since it was built. Instead, the house suffered a decline in the 20th century as the family became less able to maintain it, and it was given to English Heritage in 1990. By this time the house had suffered from rising and descending damp and general neglect. English Heritage’s policy has been to carry out urgent repairs and conserve the house as found rather than ‘restoring’ it. Almost all the rooms are accessible to visitors.
The gardens, very overgrown in 1990, have been cleared of overgrowth and restored to more or less the Victorian plan. They contain formal areas, rockeries, lawns, trees and other features and are well worth a visit.
When I visited, parts of the interior were covered up while another round of conservation was in progress.
Pevensey Castle, Sussex
English Heritage
Pevensey Castle was founded around AD 270 as a Roman fort called Anderida, defending the Bay of Pevensey. After the end of Roman rule in Britain, the walls sheltered a settlement until at least the fifth century.
In 1066, the ruinous Roman defences were refortified by William the Conqueror, and a great Norman castle developed in one corner of the Roman enclosure. By the early sixteenth century, the castle was abandoned.
The site was briefly remanned in Tudor times, and also in World War II, in response to threatened invasions.
The size of the Roman enclosure is impressive, and the walls stand to nearly their full height over much of the perimeter. The walls and towers of the medieval inner bailey mostly stand, but the keep is very ruined and little remains of the upper floors.
The castle was besieged four times in the medieval period and the keep underwent substantial alterations in the 14th century.
The machine-gun nests and the refitting of several towers for accommodation as carried out in WWII can still be seen today.
A basement room near the gate can be entered by descending steps. It was used as a prison. Another can only be accessed by a hole in the roof and may have been an ‘oubliette’.
The castle is well worth a visit if you are in the area. Access to the outer bailey is unrestricted, but entry to the castle inner bailey is chargeable. If you have time, walk or drive around the outside of the outer wall.
Bolsover Castle, Derbyshire
Bolsover Castle was built in the 17th century by the Cavendish family as a country retreat. It replaced the ruins of an earlier castle on the site. The Little Castle was begun by Charles Cavendish in 1612. His son William inherited in 1617 and added the Terrace and Riding House ranges, making the castle a place of aristocratic reception, entertainment and pleasure.
William fought for the Royalists during the English Civil War but having been given command of Royalist forces he suffered a humiliating defeat at Marston Moor and fled abroad. It appears that the terrace range suffered substantial damage during the Civil War. William returned in 1660 and built the riding house range, also rebuilding the state apartment.
William was an enthusiastic horseman and invented the art of ‘menage’. Wm. Cavendish’s son Henry inherited in 1676, and under him Bolsover suffered a decline as interest shifted to Nottingham Castle. The Terrace Range was unroofed by 1770.
In the 19th century the Little Castle was let as lodgings.
There is a lot to see at Bolsover Castle. The riding house range is visible across the outer bailey, and at certain times displays of horsemanship take place inside. At other times the interiors can be viewed.
The Terrace Range is a ruin, but there are various rooms to inspect, and also a series of ruined kitchens at basement level. The outer terrace gives great views over the plain below.
The Little Castle, a miniature Renaissance mansion in the shape of a Norman tower, has rooms on three floors, and a kitchen area in the basement. Each floor has several rooms of varying sizes, which retain some of the original decoration, including notable wall paintings and ceilings. Representative furnishing has been installed in a number of rooms. The Little Castle is the highlight of the tour.
The Fountain Garden is surrounded by a wall with walkway (recently restored) and has an elaborate fountain at its centre.
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Fort Brockhurst – Hampshire
English Heritage
Fort Brockhurst is one of a large number of forts built to defend Portmouth in the Victorian era. It is one of five outward-facing forts positioned to defend Gosport against a land attack by the French. It never fired a shot in anger, and never received its full complement of guns, but remained in use as a barracks till after the Second World War.
Of the four surviving forts of this group of 5, this is the only fort open to the public.
The fort is surrounded by a water-filled moat, and another moat surrounds the circular keep which was intended as a final refuge should the rest of the enclosure be overrun. Visitors can enter spaces including the keep, parade ground, the Institute welfare building for soldiers (now a museum), a barrack room, armourer’s workshop, ablutions room and walk along the ramparts.
Admission is free.
Note that the fort is only open for around 1 day a month and it opens at 11am rather than the usual EH 10am. If you arrive early, you cam walk the perimeter of the moat.
There is free parking for cars in front of the fort. (Width restriction).
Lytes Cary Manor, Somerset
This medieval manor was originally the family home of Elizabethan herbalist Henry Lyte. A copy of his book on herbs can be seen in the hall. In the 1750’s the Lytes were forced to vacate the house, which became partly ruinous. Sir Walter Jenner and his wife bought the house in 1907, restored the medieval part of the house and built a new family wing on the east side.
Today, visitors can see the medieval part of the house, with period contents collected by the Jenners. A number of downstairs rooms and three bedrooms can be seen. Outside is the chapel, which predates the house and, has no direct access from the house.
Lyte’s original gardens have long disappeared, but the Jenners created gardens in an Arts and Crafts style, and the gardens were further developed in the 1960’s onward by National Trust tenants the Chittendens. The garden contains a formal section with lawn and yew bushes, and other more informal parts.
While of modest size, the house contains various rooms and contents of interest.
