Old Wardour Castle.

This weekend John and I had a weekend away, staying at our favourite hotel in Somerset. We like to visit somewhere or something on our journey to the hotel and on Friday we went to Old Wardour Castle. To get to the castle we went along a very narrow lane with few passing place. I met a learner driver coming the other way and had to reverse quite a distance to get to a gateway so they could pass. The learner driver looked very nervous as did the qualified driver with him. Old Wardour is a ruined 14th century castle at Wardour in Wiltshire about 15 miles west of Salisbury. In the 1300's the land was owned by the St Martin family until the last family member died in 1385. The land was sold John, the 5th Baron Lovell and he was given permission by King Richard II to build a castle. The castle is based on the hexagonal castle of the time found in France, a design unique in Britain.

During the war of the roses the Lovell family supported the Lancastrian side and as a result their castle was confiscated. It had several owners before it was bought by Sir Thomas Arundell in 1544. This view is from the car park.

This view shows the main entrance to the castle.

Unfortunately Thomas Arundell was executed for treason in 1552 but his son Matthew Arundell bought the castle back in 1570. He remodelled much of the castle and made it more comfortable. Unfortunately during the civil war much of the castle was destroyed and it wasn't  habitable. Henry Arundell eventually acquired sufficient money to build New Wardour Castle which isn't a castle but a Palladian House. New Wardour Castle is in private ownership.

There was still a lot of the castle to visit and it gave beautiful views from the high windows. The castle is built round a central courtyard with a well in the middle.

 

The castle has two grottos in the grounds. This grotto was built in 1792 using stones from the castle ruins.

The trees were starting to take on autumnal hues. This photo was taken looking down from the castle towards the grotto.

Down by the lake there was a Banqueting House that was built in 1773 and 1774 after the castle was ruined

When I looked in the Banqueting House I found some nice stained glass windows.

I loved the bright colours on the windows and we enjoyed our visit. As we drove away from the castle to continue our journey we found there was a one way system to get back to the main road. The learner driver had gone the wrong way.

The rest of the journey to our destination was uneventful. I had take some sewing with me to work on in the evening and that's what I did until dinner time. It's so lovely to go away, not have to cook and to be able to just sit and sew and chat.

Yesterday we went bird watching and I didn't take any photos. We saw 28 different species of birds which was good and we also had a good walk around the reserve. We visited my favourite quilting shop today and I'll show you what I bought tomorrow.

Take care

Lyndsey