Back to the UK now! Took this video of Croft Castle, located in Herefordshire, England, a few months back now but only just published!
The castle has been associated with the Croft family since 1085. The original castle at this site was an earthen ringwork and has been shown by recent excavation to have been similar to Stokesay Castle. A circular ditch surrounded a curving earthern bank which was topped by a palisade of stout timbers. There were timber buildings within the enclosed area and the ramparts may have been strengthened by the addition of wooden watchtowers.
A larger stone castle was built to replace the earth and timber castle around 1400. The new castle was of quadrangular plan and had high but relatively narrow round towers at each corner. It may also have had projecting square turrets at the mid points of each wall but only the turret on the north side now remains. The four round towers still exist to their original height and their battlements have been restored in later years.
The Church of St Michael dates from around the 14th century. The box pews are seventeenth-century and there are some medieval floor tiles made at Malvern.
The castle was involved in the battle of Mortimer’s Cross in 1461 when Sir Richard Croft set forth from it with his soldiers towards the battleground a few miles away. A descendent of Sir Richard fought for King Charles at Stokesay in the 1640’s during the English civil war and, following the eventual Royalist defeat, Croft Castle was slighted to render it incapable of further military service.
In the 1760s, the Castle was remodelled by architect Thomas Farnolls Pritchard, designer of the world’s first iron bridge that spans the river Severn. Georgian sash windows replaced mullion windows and Pritchard designed the plasterwork ceilings, gothic staircase and employed master craftsmen to undertake his designs for the chimneypieces.
The estate was sold in 1799 due to the families financial difficulties associated with the South Sea Bubble but was repurchased back by Katherine, Lady Croft, in 1923.
The castle had undergone further alterations in 1913, to the designs of the architect Walter Sarel. He had the central section of the eighteenth-century gothic entrance replaced with a battlemented porch with a mullioned bay window above and the lined the entrance hall with oak panelling. Also removed were most of Pritchard’s crenellations along the parapets. In 1937, the seventeenth-century service wing to the north-west was demolished.
Today, Croft Castle showcases rare furniture, impressive plasterwork, and well-maintained gardens. The remains of the original ringwork castle can still be seen in the nearby meadow. The 1950s was a precarious decade for the owners of historic country estates. Crippling death duties and the increasing cost of upkeep meant that many were sold or pulled down. Seventeen were demolished in Herefordshire during the 20th century, and Croft could easily have been the eighteenth.
The castle faced the threat of demolition when an insurance company expressed interest in buying the land without the castle, intending to fell the park trees. However, Diana Uhlman, a Croft descendant, ensured its preservation by raising an endowment and in 1957 the National Trust acquired Croft Castle and its 1,500 acres of parkland thus narrowly avoiding the same fate as many other estates across Britain. The Croft family were able to preserve their heritage through the sale, and successfully negotiated their continued occupancy of the Castle by using some of country house’s rooms for their own private use.
The Grade I listed castle and Church along with the rest of the Grade II listed Parkland estate was opened to the public in 1960 and continues to be maintained by the National Trust.
It is thought that there were 500 visitors to Croft in 1957 with running costs amounting to £1,900 and was supported by a caretaker and two estate men to look after the grounds. During it’s 2019 season, the numbers exceeded 100,000 and the team that lives and works at Croft today is considerably larger.
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