timber roof – Fantastic travels

Bolsover Castle

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Raised by the Peverel family in the 12thcentury, very little is known of the original castle at Bolsover. A stone Keep was built c1173, surrounded by a curtain wall with an outer bailey, but the wall was breached in 1216 during the reign of King John. Surviving fragments of this curtain wall were later incorporated in a wall walk that can be seen in the castle garden.

The castle became Crown property in 1155 when the third William Peverel fled into exile, but by 1400 it had lost its strategic importance. Years of occupation by tenants had left Bolsover Castle ruinous by the time it was purchased by Sir George Talbot in 1553. Talbot, later becoming the 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, is noted for two famous associations. Firstly, his marriage to ‘Bess of Hardwick’, probably the most astute business woman of the 16th century, who owned the vast Chatsworth estates. And then his lengthy term as keeper to the exiled Mary Queen of Scots, a 16 year duty that seriously drained the family’s resources.

Berkeley Castle

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Continuously occupied by the Berkeley family since the 12th century, Berkeley Castle consists of a Norman, sandstone Keep with three semi-cylindrical turrets, and an Inner Ward surrounded by low-lying, 14ft thick walls. At one time there was a moat and the traditional Outer Ward to provide a defence strategy to the Inner Ward. The huge, round Keep is over sixty feet high, and is one of the oldest parts of the surviving castle.

Robert Fitzharding was in occupation during the mid-12th century when he was given permission by Henry II to construct a castle made of stone, to replace the former timber construction. It was from the descendants of Robert Fitzharding, who liked to describe themselves as ‘of Berkeley’, that lead to the family name still used today.