Brancepeth Castle

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Castle in County Durham, England

title: "Brancepeth Castle" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["castles-in-county-durham", "grade-i-listed-buildings-in-county-durham", "history-of-county-durham"] description: "Castle in County Durham, England" topic_path: "history" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brancepeth_Castle" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Castle in County Durham, England ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox military installation"]

FieldValue
nameBrancepeth Castle
locationBrancepeth
map_typeCounty Durham
map_altLocated in western Wales
map_captionLocation in County Durham
coordinates
map_size200
image[[File:Brancepeth Castle.jpg
captionBrancepeth Castle from the east, showing the two 19th-century gate towers (right) and older chapel and curtain walls (centre and left)
materialsSandstone
conditionStanding
ownershipDobson family
open_to_publicIn part, throughout the year.
websitehttps://www.brancepethcastle.org.uk/
::

|name=Brancepeth Castle |partof= |location=Brancepeth |map_type = County Durham |map_alt = Located in western Wales |map_caption = Location in County Durham |coordinates = |map_size = 200 |image=[[File:Brancepeth Castle.jpg|300px]] |caption=Brancepeth Castle from the east, showing the two 19th-century gate towers (right) and older chapel and curtain walls (centre and left) |type = |materials = Sandstone |height = |condition = Standing |ownership = Dobson family |open_to_public = In part, throughout the year. |battles = |events = |website = https://www.brancepethcastle.org.uk/ Brancepeth Castle is a castle in the village of Brancepeth in County Durham, England, some 5 miles south-west of the city of Durham (). It is a Grade I listed building.

History

A succession of buildings has been on the site. The first was a Norman castle built by the Bulmers, which was rebuilt by the Nevilles in the late 14th century. ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Brancepeth_castle_by_BYRNE,WILLIAM-_GMII.jpg" caption="[[Engraving]] of Brancepeth Castle in 1782, before its 19th-century expansion"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/Brancepeth_Castle_-geograph.org.uk-_26811.jpg" caption="West side of the castle. The 19th-century addition to an older section of the castle can be seen below the left turret. In the foreground is [[Japanese knotweed]]."] ::

There have been a number of other owners since that time. to Sir Henry Belaysyse, whose daughter was involved with Bobby Shafto and who was said to have inspired the famous song.

In 1796 the castle was acquired by William Russell (1734–1818) of Newbottle near Sunderland, a wealthy banker and mine owner. His son Matthew Russell (1765–1822), Member of Parliament for Saltash in 1818, in the 1820s spent lavishly on the Castle's reconstruction. The present building is largely his work, to the designs of the architect John Paterson, and then improved in the mid-19th century by Anthony Salvin for William Russell, High Sheriff of Durham, in 1841.

During World War I the castle was used as a hospital by convalescents from Newcastle General Hospital.

Dobson family

The castle is now owned by the Dobson family. Margaret Dobson, wife of publisher Dennis Dobson, bought the castle in 1978 to store the company's stock of books when the lease on its Notting Hill premises expired. Her husband died that year.

Margaret Dobson restored the fabric and interior of the building, including the lead roof, which had been stripped by an earlier tenant. She refurbished function rooms, for use as a venue for auctions and twice-yearly craft fairs. Shakespearean plays were staged in the main courtyard, and rooms were rented. Original French political posters from 1968 found in the cellar of the castle featured in the BBC programme Inside Out North East & Cumbria in February 2019.

References

  • Margot Johnson. "The Castle" in "Brancepeth" in Durham: Historic and University City and surrounding area. Sixth Edition. Turnstone Ventures, 1992, pp. 34 and 35. .

References

  1. {{NHLE
  2. "North East England History; Brancepeth".
  3. In the early 17th century, the estate was granted by the Crown to [[Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset]], from whom it subsequently confiscated the castle back due to his involvement in a poisoning scandal. In 1636, three men who had bought the castle from the King's Commissioners in 1633 sold it to Ralph Cole of Newcastle. His grandson, [[Sir Ralph Cole, 2nd Baronet]], sold the property on 9 April 1701[[George Edward Cokayne]], ''The Complete Baronetage'', volume II (1902), [https://archive.org/stream/cu31924092524382#page/n101/mode/1up p. 82].
  4. link. (June 13, 2011)
  5. [https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/archive/2003/12/19/The+North+East+Archive/7006059.Castle_of_Shafto_s_lovelorn_follower/ "Castle of Shafto's lovelorn follower"], thenorthernecho.co.uk, 19 December 2003. Accessed 2 November 2011
  6. "Feature | Vidimus".
  7. (16 December 2014). "Margaret Dobson: Publisher who helped set up a thriving list of music books and was chatelaine to the medieval Brancepeth Castle". The Independent.
  8. Margaret Dobson died aged 86 on 19 October 2014, leaving four sons, three daughters and 11 grandchildren.Tallentire, Mark (4 November 2014), [https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/11579033.owner-of-brancepeth-castle-dies-aged-86/ "Owner of Brancepeth Castle dies, aged 86"], ''[[Northern Echo]]''.
  9. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-47134468 "Atelier Populaire: French protest art found in English castle"], BBC News, 11 February 2019.

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

castles-in-county-durhamgrade-i-listed-buildings-in-county-durhamhistory-of-county-durham