Danby Castle

Details

NZ 70 NW DANBY CASTLE LANE

7/18 Danby Castle

GV I

Castle, probably late C14, now partly in use as a farmhouse and farmbuildings. Improvements of mid and late C16. Small square- plan shell keep with diagonally-projecting corner towers and ranges of buildings around inner courtyard. Partly ruinous. Coursed tooled sandstone with pantiled and plain tiled roofs. South front to road. Centre part is the south-east tower: 3 storeys and basement, 3 bays with a corbelled-out chimney breast in the middle, though chimney has gone. Flanking small chamfered windows and at right on second floor. At basement level a modern window in centre and a 2-light stone-mullioned window at right. In the left bay a corbelled-out stair turret with one chamfered light. The 3-bay left part is the section originally between the towers; the south- west tower has gone. At left a stable door, at right a narrow chamfered doorway. On first floor right a 4-light window, with hollow-chamfered mullions (2 missing) and modern glazing, under hoodmould. To left a single and a 2-light chamfered mullioned window and a small blocked opening at far left. The right part is the C19 farmhouse extension: 2 storeys, 2 bays, sash windows lost intermediate bars. End chimneys here and to left, of centre section.

On the west side, in place of the lost tower and intermediate wall section, is the farmyard with farm buildings built into the curtain wall. On the north side both towers and the intermediate section survive to at least 2-storey height externally, above a stepped and chamfered double plinth. 1-light openings on both levels.

Behind the farmhouse, the east side has been mostly lost but the south-west tower shows a 3-light double-chamfered mullioned window with Tudor-arched lights. Beyond this is a chimney corbelled out at first floor level, a 2-centred arched doorway and a similar arch to an external stair. Seen from within the courtyard the remains of the castle buildings are of good coursed masonry with various chamfered openings. At first floor level an arcaded passage and a fireplace on the west part of the north section; further east a shouldered-arched window and a Tudor-arched blocked opening, and at second floor a fireplace under a straight lintel. In the west curtain wall a fireplace under a flattened Tudor arch.

Farmbuildings extend into the courtyard from these ruins : a 2- storey barn, with boarded door, and a 1-storey cartshed adjacent. A wall, with segmental-arched wagon entrance, links barn to house, near a tall chimney with offset.

Danby Castle (contd)

Interior: the 2-centred arch in the south courtyard section leads to a medieval barrel-vaulted undercroft, from which steps rise to a narrow door. A shouldered opening on first floor leads to a large chamber, with stone-flagged floor, above, called the Courtroom presumably from past function. There is an C18 corner fireplace, a "judge's bench" of C17 panelling and a ceiling replaced possibly circa 1700. Leading from the Courtroom is another large room with C17 door, two walls of C17 panelling and another corner fireplace. Between these rooms a newel stair leads to an upper chamber unheated though with chimney shaft passing through, and with old windows partly blocked. Roof of fairly light-weight collar-and-tie-beam trusses is probably late C18.

The castle is said to have been the house of Catherine Parr, the surviving wife of Henry VIII.

V.C.H. Vol II, Pevsner, The North Riding p.136. R.C.H.M. Houses of the North York Moors pp 24, 209.

Listing NGR: NZ7172507238

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

327936

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Houses of the North York Moors, (1987), 24 209
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Yorkshire: The North Riding, (1966)

End of official list entry

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