Stainborough Castle

STAINBOROUGH CASTLE, WENTWORTH CASTLE

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

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Overview

Heritage Category:
Listed Building
Grade:
II*
List Entry Number:
1151069
Date first listed:
18-Mar-1968
List Entry Name:
Stainborough Castle
Statutory Address:
STAINBOROUGH CASTLE, WENTWORTH CASTLE
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Date:
2003-04-16
Reference:
IOE01/07466/12
Rights:
© Paul Eggleston. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:
Listed Building
Grade:
II*
List Entry Number:
1151069
Date first listed:
18-Mar-1968
List Entry Name:
Stainborough Castle
Statutory Address 1:
STAINBOROUGH CASTLE, WENTWORTH CASTLE

The scope of legal protection for listed buildings

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

The scope of legal protection for listed buildings

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:
STAINBOROUGH CASTLE, WENTWORTH CASTLE

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:
Barnsley (Metropolitan Authority)
Parish:
Stainborough
National Grid Reference:
SE 31580 03047

Details

STAINBOROUGH WENTWORTH CASTLE SE30SW 1/50 Stainborough Castle 18.3.68 - II* Gothick folly. 1728-30 for Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford. Coursed, dressed sandstone, ashlar dressings. Roughly-circular curtain wall with 4 square guard towers and with large gatehouse on east side with archway originally beneath 4 circular turrets of which 2 remain. Remaining gatehouse towers have offset buttresses and round-headed openings beneath deep band, round-headed lights on each floor above. Wall linking towers has tall, rusticated, round-arched doorway with concave reveals, impost band and keystone; 2nd floor band. Inner tower incomplete above 4th storey; link wall and outer tower are embattled. Guard towers: projecting sills to round-headed, ground-floor lights, quatrefoils beneath embattled parapets. Much of curtain wall reconstructed and with embattlements. Important as the 2nd Gothick castle in England after Lord Bathurst's "King Alfred's Hall" in Oakley Wood, Cirencester. Built on hill fort site and formed climax of the 1st Earl's garden layout. The towers were supposedly named after his 4 children; Anne, Harriet, Lucy and William. The building was already in disrepair by 1755 when John Platt of Rotherham was engaged to rebuild part of the gatehouse. Again undergoing reconstruction at time of resurvey.

J. E. Humphrey, 'A Prospect of Stainborough', unpub. thesis, Sheffield, 1982, pp334-5 also appendix 27.

Listing NGR: SE3158003047

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:
333925
Legacy System:
LBS

Sources

Other
Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England, Part 37 South Yorkshire,

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.

Ordnance survey map of Stainborough Castle

Map

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© Crown copyright [and database rights] 2026. OS AC0000815036. Use of this mapping is subject to Terms and Conditions.

End of official list entry

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