BARNWELL CASTLE

Northamptonshire

The first Castle here was a motte Castle, which is now smothered in trees near to the superb early Edwardian Castle pictured above.  This Castle was built by Berengar le Moine around 1265. The Castle was built without a licence to crenellate, although no punishment ever seems to have been meted out to Berengar who sold the Castle to Ramsey Abbey, although this was possibly the form that the punishment took.

The Castle is basically a rectangle, with four rounded corner towers and, oddly in one corner almost, a superb early gatehouse of the kind which would subsequently become standard Castle architecture (particularly on Edward I's Welsh Castles).

The Castle remained with the Monks of Ramsey until the Dissolution when it was purchased by Sir Edward Montague, who built the handsome Tudor house nearby.  Until very recently the Castle was the home of H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester and was open to the public a couple of days a year.  The current status of the Castle is unknown.

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2001