KENILWORTH CASTLE

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The original castle at Kenilworth is thought to have been a motte and bailey which was replaced by a fortified keep and a curtain wall towards the end of the 12th century. In 1173-4 Kenilworth Castle was garrisoned for Henry II and became a royal castle which was to be refortified and redesigned over several centuries. In 1253 Henry III granted the castle to Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, but following his death in 1265, the castle was surrendered to the king who granted it to his younger son, the Earl of Lancaster. Following John of Gaunt's marriage to Blanche, daughter of the first Duke of Lancaster, Kenilworth Castle passed to him in 1361 and he was responsible for upgrading it to become, in effect a royal palace. In 1533 the castle was granted to John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, but following his execution, it returned to the Crown. The grant was renewed to his son, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester and favourite of Elizabeth I, who sponsored extensive structural development at Kenilworth until his death in 1588. During the Civil War Charles I's forces initially occupied the castle but the king withdrew his garrison from Kenilworth and it was occupied by the Parliamentarians who demolished the north wall of the keep and the north curtain wall to render the castle undefendable. By the late 17th century the castle's northern gatehouse had been converted into a residence which was inhabited through to the 20th century but the remainder of the buildings were gradually abandoned. The remains of the motte of the original castle are believed to take the form of an artificial mound, 3 to 4.4 metres high, which is now enclosed within the keep, whilst the inner court of the castle is thought to occupy the site of the original bailey. The buildings of the early 12th century castle are thought to have been timber structures which were subsequently replaced by stone built ones.

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Kenilworth Castle. For details see guidebook. (1)

Surveyed. (2)

Important early C12 Keep with some of the earliest meurtrieres in existence. Early C13 curtain walls and towers. Late C14, circa 1391 by Robert Skyllington, banqueting hall comparable with Westminster Hall, though ruinous; domestic buildings etc. Late C15 barbican gatehouse converted 1650 by Colonel Hawksworth into a residence (inhabited by Lord Kenilworth). Late C16 timber-framed barn embodying castle curtain-wall. Associations with John of Gaunt, Queen Elizabeth, etc. Scheduled AM. (3)

Additional references. (4-11)

Listed by Cathcart King. (12)

Founded circa 1122, the castle was acquired by Henry II. King John spent heavily on the outer defences making it one of the largest English castles. However John had to cede the castle as a guarantee of the Magna Carta, and in the mid-13th century it was owned by the Duchy of Lancaster. Circa 1380, John of Gaunt transformed the interior, creating a palatial Great Hall complex, the ruins of which dominate the interior. The last building phase ocurred under Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester in the late 16th century. The castle was slighted after the Civil War to prevent its further use as a stronghold.

The remains consist of an inner bailey on a natural knoll, dominated by a massive oblong keep of Norman origins, and a large outer bailey surrounding the inner. The lowest level of the keep has always been filled with soil, suggesting that it encloses an earlier motte. At the corners of the keep are projecting towers, all of the arrow slits except one being converted by Robert Dudley into windows. The North wall was brought down as part of the slighting, in 1649. The keep stands at the North-East corner of the polygonal bailey, which as it remains is John of Gaunt's creation. The buildings back onto the original Norman curtain wall. The main apartment is the Great Hall to the West flanked by two square-faced towers. A kitchen wing linked the Hall with the keep, while the south range consisted consisted of a probable solar and a private chamber. These apartments are separated by a projecting tower containing latrines.Dudley added a large guest block (Leicester's Building) adjoining the bailey on the outside. Between that and the keep, the curtain wall has disappeared. The outer bailey, by King John, is long and low, with many buttresses but few intra-mural towers. It gives the appearance of a concentric castle. On the South and West sides the castle given further protection by the provision of a defensive lake. There are no towers between Mortimer's Gate in the South-East angle and the Swan Tower in the North-West angle. The North curtain wall, protected by a double-moat, was destroyed when slighted, only Lunn's Tower at the North-East angle surviving. Between Lunn's Tower and Mortimer's Tower is the semi-octagonal Water Tower.

Mortimer's Gate was the main entrance until Dudley created a new gatehouse inside the North-East angle, and is one of the finest examples of a double towered type flanking a long passage, although only the lower parts remain. It lies at the head of a narrow causeway, beyond which stood an outer gate (destroyed), and the footings of a third gatehouse have been found beyond that in earth outwork known as The Brays. The causeway was breached in the mid 16th century to drain the defensive lake. (13)

Originally part of the royal manor of Stoneleigh, Henry I granted the manor to his chamberlain, Geoffrey de Clinton who built one of the strongest and most important castles in the Midlands. It was so important that Henry II took it into royal hands on the death of Geoffrey de Clinton II in 1173-4. Granted to Simon de Montfort by Henry III in 1244, it held out against the King for a year after Simon's death at the Battle of Evesham in 1265. Henry at once granted it to his son, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, whose descendant, John of Gaunt built the magnificent great hall, and transformed it from a fortress to a palace. Henry VIII spent lavishly on the castle, and following its grant to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester in 1563, a new gatehouse was built, and the keep was remodelled to combine feudal splendour with Elizabethan luxury. In 1649 Parliament ordered it rendered untenable for military purposes. (14,15)

Additional reference and photograph. (16)

SOURCE TEXT

( 1) General reference

Ministry of Works. 1958. Kenilworth Castle Guidebook

( 2) Field Investigators Comments

F1 24-APR-1961

( 3) List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest

Warwick, 10-NOV-1971 586 Page(s)1

( 4) by John H Drew 1971 Kenilworth Castle: a discussion of its entrances

Birmingham and Warwickshire Archaeological Society transactionsVol 84 (1967-70) -

( 5) by M W Thompson 1977 Three stages in the construction of the hall at Kenilworth Castle

Ancient monuments and their interpretation : essays presented to A.J. Taylor

( 6) by Peter Ellis 1995 The Elizabethan gardens and Leicester's stables at Kenilworth Castle [excavations between 1970 and 1984 by Beric Morley, Peter Brown, and Tim Crump]

Birmingham and Warwickshire Archaeological Society transactionsVol 84 (1967-70) -

( 7) Derek Renn 1991 Kenilworth Castle [guide]

( 8) English Heritage Register of parks and gardens of special historic interest in England

Warwickshire Part 42

( 9) Scheduled Monument Notification

04-JAN-1996

(10) edited by Peter Furtado et al 1988 Ordnance Survey guide to castles in Britain

Page(s)144

(11) by Tom McNeill 1992 English Heritage book of castles

Page(s)60-2,75,76,81,98,122,124,126

(12) David J Cathcart King 1983 Castellarium anglicanum : an index and bibliography of the castles in England, Wales and the Islands. Volume II : Norfolk-Yorkshire and the islands

2 Page(s)482-3

(13) Adrian Pettifer 1995 English castles : a guide by counties

Page(s)257-9

(14) R Allen Brown, H M Colvin and A J Taylor 1963 The history of the King's Works, volume 2 : the Middle Ages

Page(s)683-5

(15) by H M Colvin, D R Ransome and John Summerson 1975 The history of the King's Works, volume 3 : 1485-1660 (part 1)

Page(s)258-60

(16) David Stocker 2006 England's Landscape: The East Midlands

Page(s)129

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