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Wardour Castle, Wiltshire

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Wardour Castle in Wiltshire was built in 1392, after Richard II granted Baron Lovell permission to build himself a house in a castle style. By 1392 new castles were the equivalent of the gated mansions of today's Hollywood stars. The age had passed when castles were built as fighting machines. Bodiam Castle dating to about the same time in East Sussex is a similar sort of castle, built as an impressive house for a rich nobleman. Wardour used a trendy hexagonal design, based on fashionable castles being built on the continent. This fancy house for the super rich then passed through a number of owners, until the dark years of the English Civil War in the seventeenth century. A long running dispute between Charles I and Parliament had finally erupted into violence. Now Wardour Castle faced the unpleasant and unaccustomed prospect of actual fighting. Wardour's owners in 1640 as war began were the Arundells. As catholics their future lay with the religiously tolerant king, not with a Parliament dominated by hostile puritans. Thomas Arundell left to fight for the king, leaving his wife and twenty five men as a garrison for Wardour Castle. On 2nd May 1643 over a thousand parliamentarian troops led by Sir Edward Hungerford surrounded Wardour and demanded to be let in to search for royalist supporters. After being refused entry they laid siege to the castle and battered its walls with gun fire. Castles were not designed for the age of gun powder, and after five days, with the prospect of Wardour's complete destruction, Lady Blanche Arundell and her handful of men surrendered. Meanwhile Thomas Arundell had been killed at the Battle of Lansdowne. It was Thomas Arundell's son, Henry, who returned to take revenge. Surrounding Wardour in March 1644, he attacked furiously, overwhelming the parliamentary garrison, badly damaging his own castle in the process.

 

After the war the Arundell family returned to Wardour and built a new house just outside the walls of their old castle. This house, now called the Banqueting House, kept them going for about a hundred years before New Wardour Castle was built nearby. The ruins of Old Wardour Castle were left as a kind of huge brooding garden feature. Today the ruins of Old Wardour Castle are looked after by English Heritage. Fittingly for a castle which was playing the role of a castle, rather than being an actual castle, Wardour is sometimes used as a film location. Early scenes in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves were filmed here.

 

Opening Times: Opening hours for English Heritage properties can be complex. Please use contact details below.

Directions: Castle is difficult for those with mobility problems. Grounds are partly accessible. Adapted toilet facilities provided. Click here for an interactive map centred on Wardour Castle.

Address: Old Wardour Castle, Near Tisbury, Salisbury, Wiltshire SP3 6RR

Access: This is not an easy property for those with mobility problems. With assistance the ground floor might be manageable. The grounds are partly accessible.

Contact:

telephone: 01747 870487

web site: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/old-wardour-castle/

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