Sherborne Castle

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The front of the castle

Sherborne Castle is a 16th-century Tudor mansion southeast of Sherborne in Dorset, England. Sherborne Old Castle is the ruin of a 12th-century castle in the grounds of the mansion. The 1200-acre park formed only a small part of the 15,000 acre Digby estate.

The old castle was built as the fortified palace of Roger de Caen, Bishop of Salisbury and Chancellor of England, and still belonged to the church in the late 16th century. After passing through Sherborne on the way to Plymouth, Sir Walter Raleigh fell in love with the castle, and Queen Elizabeth relinquished the estate, leasing it to Raleigh in 1592 ^[1]. Rather than refurbish the old castle, Raleigh decided to construct a new mansion in the grounds on the site of an existing hunting lodge. The new house, a four-story, rectangular building was completed in 1594 and named Sherborne Lodge.

During Raleigh's imprisonment in the Tower, King James leased the estate to Robert Carr and then sold it to Sir John Digby, 1st Earl of Bristol in 1617. In the 1620s the Digby family added four wings to the house in anarchitectural style similar to the original.

The ruins of the old castle

In the Civil War Sherborne was strongly Royalist, and the old castle was left in ruins by General Fairfax of the Parliamentary forces in 1645. The name "Sherborne Castle" was then applied to the new house.

Through the early and mid-18th century William, 5th Lord Digby, who laid out the grounds praised by Alexander Pope, and his heirs Edward, 6th Lord Digby, who inherited in 1752, and Henry, 7th Lord, laid out the present castle gardens, including the 1753 lake designed by Lancelot Brown, which separates the old and new castles.^[2] The ruins of the old castle are part of the gardens, being conspicuous amongst the trees across the lake. King George III visited the house and gardens in 1789, shortly before awarding Henry Digby with a Peerage. When the last Earl Digby died in the 19th century the house was passed to the Wingfield Digby family, who still own the house. The house was modernised by the architect Philip Charles Hardwick.

In World War I the house was used by the Red Cross as a hospital and in World War II as the headquarters for the commandos involved in the D-Day landings.

Brown's lake in Digby's garden

The gardens are open to the public much of the year, and the house is open to the public most Saturdays. The estate often hosts special events, such as concerts and firework displays. The old castle was purchased by English Heritage and is now separate from the rest of the estate.