Bolsover Castle: A Norman Fortress and Cavendish Retreat in Derbyshire
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- English, Norman
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Castle
On this page16 sections
History
Bolsover Castle is a historic castle complex in Bolsover, United Kingdom, whose original Norman fortress was founded in the twelfth century and whose present Little Castle reflects early seventeenth-century eclectic architecture. Built on the earthworks of an earlier Norman stronghold, it developed from a military site into an aristocratic retreat, later suffering damage, neglect, industrial subsidence, and extensive conservation.
Norman foundation and royal control
Before the Norman Conquest, the site held a manor house and a small church. The Norman authorities incorporated it into their domain, and the Peverel family built the first castle in the twelfth century. William Peverel the Younger was associated with its foundation. After his death in 1155, the castle became Crown property, although the Ferrers family, the Earls of Derby, continued to claim the Peverel estates.
During the rebellion against Henry II, the king spent £116 strengthening Bolsover and nearby Peveril Castle. The garrison shared by Bolsover, Peveril, and Nottingham was increased to twenty knights. In 1216 King John granted Bolsover and Peveril to William de Ferrers, 4th Earl of Derby, in an effort to secure his support during the rebellion. The castellan Brian de Lisle refused to surrender the castles, and Ferrers captured Bolsover after a siege in 1217. The Crown regained control in 1223 and spent £33 repairing damage from the fighting.
During the two decades after 1223, four towers were added, the keep, the principal fortified tower, and parts of the curtain wall, the enclosing defensive wall, were repaired, and a kitchen and barn were built. These works cost £181. From 1290 the castle and manor were granted to a succession of local farmers. Their custodianship was followed by a gradual decline in the condition of the medieval fortress.
The Talbots and the Cavendish rebuilding
Edward VI granted Bolsover Castle to the Talbot family in 1553. George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, was associated with the property. After his death in 1590, his son Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury, sold the ruined castle to his stepbrother and brother-in-law, Sir Charles Cavendish.
Cavendish had leased the estate from Talbot for several years before acquiring it in 1613. He had already begun the foundations of the present Little Castle on 30 March 1612. The new building was intended as a family retreat rather than a defensive fortress, while the family usually lived at Welbeck. Cavendish removed the old Norman castle walls, excavated the cellars, and laid out the terraces. The rough structure, including its fireplaces, was complete when he died on 4 April 1617, although the building itself remained unfinished.
The rebuilding involved Sir Charles Cavendish and the designer Robert Smythson, with John Smythson also associated with the design and construction. Robert Smythson may have contributed to the plans, while later work drew on the Italianate architectural ideas associated with Inigo Jones, an influential English architect and stage designer whose work introduced Italian Renaissance and Mannerist influences into English court architecture.
William Cavendish and the Caroline court
William Cavendish inherited Bolsover at the age of twenty-five and continued its architectural development. In 1618 and 1619 he and John Smythson visited London to gather ideas for the remaining work. Cavendish became Viscount Mansfield in 1620, Marquess of Newcastle in 1643, and Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1665.
He developed the garden and riding school and became an accomplished horseman. He also wrote a French-language treatise on equestrianism. On 30 July 1634 he hosted King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria at an elaborate entertainment attended by the nobility of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. Ben Jonson’s Love’s Welcome, a masque combining music, poetry, costume, scenery, and performance, was probably performed in the garden. The cost equalled the total annual income from Cavendish’s estates and appears not to have impressed the king.
William Cavendish’s second wife, Margaret Cavendish, born Lucas, wrote works about her husband, natural philosophy, and fiction. In 1667 she became the first woman to address the Royal Society.
Civil War damage and restoration
Construction at Bolsover was interrupted by the English Civil Wars of 1642 to 1651, conflicts between supporters of the monarchy and Parliament. Parliamentarian forces seized the castle and slighted it, meaning that they damaged it so it could no longer serve effectively as a fortress. The buildings were left in a ruinous condition.
During the Restoration period, William Cavendish repaired the castle and added a new hall and state rooms to the Terrace Range. By his death in 1676 the complex had been returned to good order. The family’s principal use of the building lasted about twenty years, and they are thought to have lived there toward the end of that period.
Decline, ownership, and modern conservation
Henry Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Newcastle, made Nottingham Castle his principal residence and moved Bolsover’s furnishings there. Reduced attention and financial difficulties contributed to further neglect. His daughter Margaret inherited his possessions and married John Holles, for whom the title Duke of Newcastle was recreated in 1694. Their daughter Henrietta became the owner in 1716, when Bolsover was already in poor condition.
Henrietta ordered an inventory in 1717 and arranged renovations at the Little Castle around 1750, including the complete replacement of its roof. After her death in 1755, the property passed to the related Dukes of Portland and, through Margaret Bentinck, Duchess of Portland, into the Bentinck family. Bolsover became one of the residences of the Earls and Dukes of Portland.
By about 1770 the Terrace Range had lost its roof, although the stables continued in use. Nineteenth-century tenants included members of the clergy. William Calcroft Tinsley occupied the castle from 1818 for eleven years, after which his assistant priest, John Hamilton Gray, became the tenant. Gray introduced Gothic Revival windows and an additional terrace entrance, while the garden became increasingly overgrown. After 1883 the castle was uninhabited.
By the death of William Cavendish-Bentinck, the last private owner, the castle was structurally dilapidated. Limestone and clay extraction connected with the Bolsover mining industry destabilized the ground and caused cracking in the walls. Coal-mine emissions produced severe pollution, and during the First World War the Terrace Range was used as a shooting range.
By 1945 the castle had passed into state care. The Ministry of Works, the predecessor of English Heritage, stabilized the buildings with steel reinforcement, restored the garden walls, replanted flowers corresponding to those grown in the seventeenth century, and largely reversed Gray’s Victorian alterations. A major restoration followed in 2013 and 2014. English Heritage now cares for Bolsover Castle, which is protected as both a Scheduled Monument and a Grade I listed building. These designations recognize the national importance of its historic fabric and archaeological remains and restrict unauthorized alteration.
Remains
The surviving complex occupies a hillside, with the principal building set above a north-facing precipice. Its physical arrangement includes the Little Castle, a walled pleasure garden, ruined servants’ quarters, the surviving stables, and the remains of the Terrace Range. The earlier medieval castle was a walled motte castle, with fortifications arranged around a raised earthwork mound.
The Little Castle
The present Little Castle is an eccentric building designed for elegant living rather than military defense. It combines Romanesque rounded arches, Gothic pointed forms and ribbed vaults, and Mannerist influences associated with Inigo Jones. Its wall and ceiling paintings remain an important part of the interior decoration.
Entrance and ground-floor rooms
The entrance lies on the terrace side and carries a statue of Hercules above the door. A small antechamber beside the entrance hall contains paintings of the four humours, the classical medical theory that health and temperament depended on the balance of blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. The room may have served as a waiting room for visitors.
The Great Hall was used for dining. Gothic rib vaults rest on Doric columns, and the room contains a fireplace dated 1616. Wall paintings show some of the labours of Hercules. Opposite it, the richly decorated Pillar Parlour was used for dining with guests. Its wooden wall panels are painted gold, while paintings based on engravings by Cornelis Cort represent the five classical senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Rib vaulting supported by Ionic columns completes the room. A storeroom and lobby occupy other parts of the ground floor.
Reception rooms and private retreats
The largest first-floor room is the Star Chamber, a formal reception room with a ceiling painted with stars. Its wall panels depict saints and biblical figures, while replica tapestries, including scenes of Moses, occupy the spaces once filled by biblical hangings. A ceiling frieze carries the arms of Cavendish’s grandparents and parents.
Behind the Star Chamber, the Marble Closet provided a private retreat. It is clad in marble and has a westward-facing balcony above the entrance. Three mildly erotic scenes of the Virtues decorate its ceiling vaults, based on engravings by Hendrick Goltzius.
William Cavendish’s bedroom occupies the south-eastern corner of the first floor. It has a low ceiling and wooden wall panels that were found in 1999 to have originally been stamped or printed with gold. A private closet and the Heaven Closet and Elysium Closet adjoin the bedroom.
Heaven and Elysium Closets
The Heaven Closet may have been used to store valuable objects such as musical instruments. Its ceiling painting shows a dancing Christ ascending to heaven among musical angels. One angel holds a score containing a song about Robin Hood. The scene appears to draw on Continental Catholic and Baroque art.
The more intimate Elysium Closet contains paintings of deities including Minerva and Bacchus on Olympus, together with voluptuous scenes of orgies. Above the window is the motto “All is But vanitie,” placed between a laughing philosopher and a weeping philosopher.
Upper floor and cellar
The upper floor contains three bedrooms, three smaller rooms, and a storage closet. A central dome admits light, while stone benches occupy recesses in the walls. The room may have been used for eating dessert. The former walkable flat roof was replaced by a conventional roof structure in 1750.
The cellar contained the kitchen and storage for beer, wine, and cheese. Ovens remain set into the walls, where meals were baked over wood fires. A staircase originally connected the wine cellar with the Great Hall. The cellar kitchen continued in use until about 1880.
Garden and medieval earthworks
A garden enclosed by a crenellated wall surrounds the Little Castle on its south-eastern side. A walkable wall walk runs around the garden, and rooms built into the wall were used partly for alchemical experiments. Alchemy involved experiments concerning the transformation of substances and the nature of matter, combining practical procedures with philosophical and esoteric ideas.
The garden contains a fountain and a statue of Venus, surrounded by busts of emperors and representations of sexually suggestive beasts. Beyond the seventeenth-century interiors, the medieval site survives principally through earthworks and ruins. Its earlier defensive fabric included a keep, curtain walls, four towers added after 1223, a kitchen, and a barn.
Terrace Range and equestrian buildings
Terrace Range
The Terrace Range forms the western boundary of the estate. The long building originally had three floors, and John Smythson proposed converting it into a two-storey luxury apartment with a long gallery rather than retaining its utilitarian function.
The range contained kitchens, storerooms, cellars, and a brewery arranged so that different groups of servants could work without encountering one another. It was stripped of its roof and plundered during the Civil War. After the Restoration, William Cavendish replaced the former flat roof with an additional arched storey designed to harmonize with the roof of the adjacent stables, and a chapel was built at its northern end. Eighteenth-century decay left the structural skeleton as the principal surviving form.
Riding school and stables
The former riding school beside the entrance was built to accommodate fifteen horses. Henry Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Newcastle, converted it into apartments for lower-ranking visitors. Its present roof is a reconstruction, and the building is associated with demonstrations of seventeenth-century equestrian practices.
The stables remain preserved beside the castle and are also used for demonstrations of seventeenth-century equestrian practices. Together with the riding school, they preserve the part of the estate connected with William Cavendish’s training and presentation of horses.
