Astwell Castle

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as; Astwell House

In the civil parish of Helmdon.
In the historic county of Northamptonshire (Modern Authority of Northamptonshire, 1974 county of Northamptonshire).

Embattled gatehouse survivest of C15 manor house, now gone along with moat. Has been called castle only since 1886. The fortified manor house to which the existing gatehouse belonged was probably built by Thomas Lovett who exchanged the manors of Rushton and Great Oakley for those of Falcutt and Astwell in 1471. The daughter of the last Thomas Lovett of Astwell married Francis Shirley and their son George Shirley demolished most of the medieval manor house and built a new house beside the gatehouse, completed in 1606.

This site has been described as a;
Fortified Manor House.
The confidence that this site is a medieval fortification or palace is Possible.
Masonry ruins/remnants remains.

listed building

Images of England

The Ordnance Survey Map Grid Reference is SP60804407

PastScape number; 341441

Books

Salter, Mike, 2002, The Castles of the East Midlands (Malvern) p70
Emery, Anthony, 2000, Greater Medieval Houses Vol2 (Cambridge) p220-1
Heward, John and Taylor, Robert, 1996, The country houses of Northamptonshire pp69-72
Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge) p164
King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol2 p320 [reject]
Pevsner, Nikolaus; revised by Bridget Cherry, 1973, Buildings of England: Northamptonshire (Penguin) p96
Turner, T.H. and Parker, J.H., 1859, Some account of Domestic Architecture in England (Oxford) Vol3 pt2 p245

Journal Articles

Markham, 1925, Associated Architectural Societies' reports and papers [Lincoln, York, Northampton, Bedford, Worcester, Leicester and Sheffield] Vol27 p308-15

Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)

William Camden, 1607, Britannia [http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/cambrit/huntseng.html#norts3]

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of English Heritage and other individuals and organisations.

It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from any site without proper recording and reporting. Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

Please help me to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting me if you see errors or if you can add information.
I do acknowledge the help I get with this site.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

¤¤¤¤¤

Astwell Castle

The Ordnance Survey Map Grid Reference is SP60804407

Sources of information, references and further reading