On the Suffolk coast, Orford Castle raises its astonishing polygonal keep — one of the most remarkable in England. A royal fortress of the twelfth century, it passed in Tudor times into the hands of great courtier families, and its history illustrates the slow decline of the old strongholds in favour of pleasure houses.
A unique keep
Built from 1165 to 1173 for King Henry II, the keep of Orford is an architectural feat: a 27-metre tower, circular in its interior plan but flanked on the outside by three attached rectangular towers, which gives it a polygonal silhouette unique in England. Its fine ashlar, its stairs and its stacked rooms make it a masterpiece of Romanesque military architecture. In Tudor times, this already ancient fortress changed hands several times.
From Tudor courtiers to abandonment
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Orford passed through the hands of the Willoughbys, the Stanhopes and then the Devereux, Earls of Essex — this last family being one of the most prominent of Elizabeth's reign (Robert Devereux, the queen's disgraced favourite). Michael Stanhope commissioned from the surveyor John Norden a survey of the estate — the oldest known representation of the castle. Tellingly, Stanhope built around 1604-1605 a new house at Sudbourne, 'probably reusing stones from Orford Castle': the old keep now served as a quarry for a pleasure house. Orford thus illustrates, very concretely, the decline of the medieval fortresses in the age of the Renaissance. To see: the polygonal keep (27-metre tower with three attached towers), the earthwork remains of the bailey, the fine ashlar and the stairs.
Did you know?
A medieval legend, earlier than our period but attached to the place, tells that a 'wild man' or 'merman' — covered in hair, mute, brought up from the waves — was caught in fishermen's nets around 1167 and kept six months at Orford Castle, before returning to the sea and vanishing. This strange creature of Suffolk folklore still haunts the imagination of the polygonal keep.
Notes
Orford Castle lies at Orford, Suffolk; a keep run by English Heritage, open to visits. Seasonal hours to check.
Quiz
- What is unique about the keep of Orford?
- Its polygonal plan (round inside, 3 attached towers)
- It is of wood
- It is underground
- Which great Elizabethan family owned it?
- The Devereux (Earls of Essex)
- The Boleyns
- The Tudors
- What were stones from the castle used for around 1604?
- To build a new house at Sudbourne
- To repair a cathedral
- To build a ship