A few hundred metres from the Elizabethan house of Sherborne, the ruins of the old castle tell the other side of the same story: that of a medieval fortress Walter Raleigh first wanted to inhabit, before giving it up. Two neighbouring castles, one man, two ages of architecture.
A fortified episcopal palace
Sherborne Old Castle was no ordinary castle, but a fortified palace of the Bishops of Salisbury, built in the twelfth century: a prelate's residence as much as a stronghold, with keep, ranges and court. Like so many Church holdings, it changed hands in Tudor times. In 1592, Elizabeth I leased the estate to her favourite Walter Raleigh, who bought the freehold in 1599. Tradition holds that Raleigh 'fell in love' with it while passing on the road to Plymouth, which decided the queen to grant it to him.
The failure of modernisation
Raleigh first undertook to modernise the old castle to make it his residence: he rebuilt the south wall, pierced it with a great compass window, arranged a new state staircase from the west court, converted the gatehouse into lodgings for his steward John Meere, and partly demolished the medieval great hall. But the enterprise met the insurmountable discomfort of the old architecture — thick walls, dark rooms, a rigid plan. It was this failure that drove Raleigh to build his new house right beside it, the Sherborne Lodge. The old castle, left to abandonment, was later ruined in a Civil War siege (1645). To see: the ruins of the great episcopal palace (keep, ranges), the remains of Raleigh's interventions (south wall, gatehouse), a site in the care of English Heritage.
Did you know?
Two castles at Sherborne face each other, a few steps apart, like two ages looking at one another: the old medieval palace Raleigh gave up inhabiting, and the new pavilion he preferred to it. One fell into ruin, the other still stands — proof, in one park, that the waning Renaissance had chosen its side: that of comfort against that of feudal stone.
Notes
Sherborne Old Castle lies at Sherborne, Dorset, north-east of the new castle; a ruin run by English Heritage, open to visits. GPS to confirm.
Quiz
- What was Sherborne Old Castle originally?
- A fortified palace of the Bishops of Salisbury
- A fort of Henry VIII
- A monastery
- What did Raleigh attempt on the old castle?
- To modernise it to live in it
- To raze it entirely
- Nothing
- Why did he give it up?
- The discomfort of the old architecture
- A ghost
- An order of the pope