Sudeley Castle

Sudeley Castle is about 30 miles from where I live and yet it took until I was in my 50’s before I visited. Another victim of Cromwell’s slighting the castle was restored in the nineteenth century and now has magnificent gardens too. Photography at Sudeley Castle offers many opportunities as the gardens are fantastic with the castle as a backdrop, if the weather is good.

Visiting Sudeley Castle

The castle is privately owned although if you are a member of the HHA you do get free access. The castle is in Gloucestershire, about 10 miles from the M5, has plenty of onsite parking and is well signposted. The castle is a proper attraction that has an onsite cafe as well as toilets, unlike quite a few of them! Admission prices were reasonable, especially considering you could spend a whole day there. Full information is at the castle website. There is also a decent cafe and a childrens adventure playground on site.

My experience at Sudeley Castle

We had a quick coffee in the cafe by the ticket shop before heading to the tithe barn. From here we followed the suggested route through the grounds, castle, gardens, church and castle again before finishing with lunch in the Terrace Restaurant. Luckily the route was well marked as I got completely lost within about 5 minutes.

There was a huge amount of history here – I didn’t know it was owned by Richard III at one time and the info on his claim to the throne was interesting (if you’re a history geek!). This is also where Katherine Parr is buried and when her coffin was discovered 150 years ago the coffin bindings had preserved her body almost completely intact! Sadly, once it was all removed she began to decompose and is now pretty much dust. What a missed opportunity!

It wasn’t really the best time of year to visit the gardens as not much was in flower and the weather was pretty dismal but I can imagine how glorious they must be in the summer so we’ll have to visit again. The interior hosts some excellent Tudor exhibitions but I didn’t take any photos inside.

We visited in March so the gardens were not at their best but the opportunities for photography at Sudeley Castle are still impressive. The tithe barn has the koi pond for reflections and there are other ponds in the gardens too. There are also various archways and windows to nicely frame pictures.

The second batch of photos are from our visit in July 2021, when the weather was rather better!

Sudeley Castle photo gallery

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Photos from July 2021:

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History of Sudeley Castle

The castle’s origins are twelfth century and it was expanded and rebuilt (using loot from The Hundred Years War) in the fifteenth century by Ralph Boteler, created Baron Sudeley by Henry VI. I am always surprised at the number of castles that were expanded or built using a combination of ransom money and loot from pillaging in the French wars, it was obviously a lucrative business!

As he was a Lancastrian the castle was confiscated from Boteler and given to Richard, Duke of Gloucester by Edward IV. When he became king in 1483 he had the banqueting hall constructed with its fabulous oriel windows but on his death in 1485 the castle passed to the crown. On Henry VIII’s death his son, Edward VI, gifted the castle to Thomas Seymour who married Edward’s stepmother Catherine Parr in 1547.

Thomas had the castle renovated and Catherine moved there during her pregnancy. She gave birth to a daughter, Mary (I’m not sure if this suggests Catholic leanings?) but then died shortly after. I’m not sure what became of Mary but Seymour was executed for treason in 1549 and the property eventually passed back to the crown. Queen Mary gave the castle to John Brydges and he retained it under Elizabeth, entertaining her with a three day feast to celebrate the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

The castle was much fought over in the English Civil War, suffering two sieges and was eventually slighted and slipped into the usual role of such castles – a readily accessible quarry. This lasted for two hundred years before being bought by the members of the new nobility, industrialists rather than land owners, in the mid nineteenth century. The Dent family extensively renovated the castle and it has since continued to be restored and reinvented with extensive work done on the gardens. Our pernicious death duties make running any estate a challenge and the castle is now both a family home and a tourist attraction.

References

The official and really rather good Sudeley Castle website is here

Wikipedia’s entry is here