Old Wardour Castle

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Visited Old Wardour Castle yesterday. Of the local baronial castle, it doesn't have the sort of fabulously murky history of places like Farleigh Hungerford Castle, but it compensates by being damned attractive to look at.

http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.16439

The interesting thing about this castle is that it demonstrates what happened to castle design stopped being driven by defensive needs, and was more about impressing the neighbours. It was packed with personal chambers over 5 floors, making it a luxurious personal dwelling.

Unlike many old ruins, the floors have ben restored so that you can get to the upper storeys and get a better feel of the layout.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

The more intact face in this image is the front entrance. The tall arched windows over the door ran along the side of the great hall (which was three storeys high).

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Despite not being really designed for serious action, it proved surprisingly tough. Its thick walls easily resisted the cannons pointed at it during the English Civil War.

However it had a weak point. There were tunnels running from underground storerooms to outside builidings so that the masters didn't have to see beastly serfs running around. In 1644, a very large mine was pushed up one of those tunnels, and blew the side of the castle off.

After the war ended, it was preserved as a "romantic ruin" by the new owners, who also constructed a grotto and prehistoric stone circle around it, to make a sort of 18th century theme park.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

This page has 3D reconstructions of how the intact castle would have appeared.

http://www.timeref.com/ward3d.htm

[BeBMan]

Castles

That site with 3d views of them reminds on Lords of the Realm I where you could design your own castles