Interior of the Keep
This is John Smythson's famous Star Chamber. There are a lot of rooms
like this packed into this small keep, including the Pillar Chamber, Hall, and
"Elysium" and "Heaven" chambers. Note the elaborate tall marble fireplace; this
is characteristic of this building, as are the panels and painted ceiling.
Sadly, there is no furniture in this building -- it was all removed to Welbeck
Abbey, the family's main house, in the 18th century, and the Little Castle was
rented out to a Victorian vicar (of dubious reputation, according the guide
book) who did some lousy things like punching out new doors where they didn't
belong.
The Terrace Range
The Keep was too cramped for the large parties that came to visit.
The grand State Apartments were designed by Robert Smythson and his son John,
and contained no less than two kitchens and a bakery, large dining room
(originally the Great Hall), a huge Entrance Hall, a 220-foot long Great
Gallery, and some elaborate living quarters. See that path in front of the
impressive facade? That would have been the line of the Norman curtain wall
along the hillside overlooking a deep valley. The wall was sacrificed to provide
a magnificent view from the new mansion to the Peak District in the west and a
nice promenade terrace -- you can't really see the remains of the grand
staircases, benches, statuary, flowerbeds, etc. that used to run beside the
path, since it was really very foggy when this picture was taken, and a lot of
reconstructive repair work was going on [could not get inside the
building].
The Riding Academy (exterior)
The third generation of Smythson's, Huntingdon, designed the riding
school, one of the few left in England, for the indoor art of equestrian
dressage. There is nothing comparable to, or as old as, this except on the
Continent -- such as the "Spanish Riding School" in Vienna.
The Riding Academy (interior)
Rough General Plan of the Castle
The Riding Academy (1630-34) was built across the middle of
the old outer bailey of the castle, creating Outer and Inner Courts. The Outer
Court is now a school and playing field, but it would have contained all the
domestic offices -- stables, servants' quarters, granaries, etc. The State
Apartments were basically built in three stages: (1) Cavendish Apartments
(northern portion, CA on the plan -- 1608-17, Sir Charles), (2) Dining Room,
Kitchens, and Great Gallery (western portion -- 1617-20, Sir William), and (3)
Entrance Hall and Private Rooms (southeastern portion -- 1635-40, Sir William).
The Little Castle and Fountain Court (1608-30) stand where Peverel's keep and
inner bailey once stood; the walls of the Fountain Court are medieval with new
facing (Smythson's), nothing else of the medieval castle apart from the general
layout having survived the rebuilding. A small Norman keep stood on the site of
the forecourt of the new Keep. Three Garden rooms are built into the walls on
the site of the gatehouse and the two mural towers that were known to exist (GR
on the plan); there are also little niches and grottoes for trysting, and a
grand Venus fountain. A waterworks tower at the junction of the east boundary
wall and the Fountain Court was the first thing built in the reconstruction,
showing sensible priorities. (One curious thing about this, though -- there are
no bathrooms, at least shown on the official plan; the little rooms in the keep
turrets are described as 'stool closets', which means the servants had to hump
up and down the stairs with buckets, not a very pleasant job.) From the
Cavendish Apartments, a bridge gave access to the wide parapet of the inner
bailey, which also connected with the Little Castle, although one would have to
walk around the whole circuit to reach it.
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Castles
Here's gratitude for you. I wrote to the
Bolsover Town Council and offered this page to them for free (apart from linking
to me from their web site). No reply, nothing. Oh, well.... Does this page
really suck that much, or is it too heavy on graphics so it takes too long to
load? Does it not make you want to visit the place? If yes to all that, then I
guess this is a waste web space.