Ashby Castle, Leicestershire, England
Posted by: 
GeoRams
N 52° 44.800 W 001° 28.087
30U E 603402 N 5845190
Ashby Castle forms the backdrop to the famous jousting scenes in Sir Walter Scott's classic novel of 1819, Ivanhoe. Now a ruin, the castle began as a manor house in the 12th century.
Waymark Code: WM6F8A
Location: United Kingdom
Date Posted: 05/25/2009
Views: 13
Ashby-de-la-Zouch Castle was originally a 12th century stone fortified manor house, founded by Alain de Parrhoet, la Zouch. In 1474, William, Lord Hastings was granted a licence to crenellate and he founded an impressive stone keep and courtyard fortress. To the original hall, kitchen and solar block, he added a dominating four storey machicolated square keep, with a seven storey rectangular extension, a chapel and a surrounding curtain wall.
The remaining narrow entrance of this late-medieval keep, was protected by a portcullis and running from the basement to the kitchen is a rare underground passage. In the 16th century, the Wilderness castle garden was given an enclosing brick wall, flanked by a pair of two storey angle towers.
Between 1474 and his execution by Richard III in 1483, Edward IV's Chamberlain Lord Hastings added the chapel and the impressive keep-like Hastings Tower - a castle within a castle. Visitors can climb the 24 metre (78 feet) high tower, which offers fine views. Later the castle hosted many royal visitors, including Henry VII, Mary Queen of Scots, James I and Charles I.
A Royalist stronghold during the Civil War, the castle finally fell to Parliament in 1646, and was then made unusable. An underground passage from the kitchen to the tower, probably created during this war, can still be explored today. Archaeologists recently investigated the mysterious castle garden, famous for its elaborately shaped sunken features.