Devizes Castle Including Glass House and Garden Walls Encircling West Side of Mound

Details

SU 0061 2/217
1042

Devizes Castle including Glass House
and Garden Walls encircling west side of mound

I

The original castle built by Bishop Roger of Salisbury in reign of Henry
I has virtually disappeared. It was partly in ruins in the C16, but finally
destroyed at the end of the Civil Wars by Order of Parliament. The site
is a magnificent one with a great mound and moat. The mound falls steeply
on 3 sides towards the undulating ground to the south-west. The rich parklands
of the Old Park form with the Castle mound a fine piece of landscape, which
should always be preserved. The plan of the town in the form of a fan with
the Castle as the centre of the segment, seems to be too formal to be a
haphazard growth. It is reasonably certain that the town grew after the
building of the Castle, and it would be interesting to know how far the
plan was dictated by the Bishopric of Salisbury, so closely connected with
the Castle itself, as occurred at a slightly later date in the case of Salisbury
city.

The existing structure was begun in 1842 by Goodridge of Bath. Highly asymmetrical.
The ashlar faced keep and turret to the south are Goodridge with paired
lights divided by colonettes in narrow openings. The rest to the north
is a massive rock faced enlargement of 1860's, 70's and 80's. Crenellated
parapet, buttresses, superimposed bays, oriel windows and large mullioned
and transomed windows. The north tower however, is partly of C17 brick
and was originally a windmill. It's rubble base may be part of the original
castle. Around the north tower's base, facing west, is a bowed fernery
with stone tiled roof, round interlaced arches forming pointed lights with
Norman style shafts dividing. Adjoining the fernery to the north is a fine
glass house with octagonal base and a stepped domical roof with crowning
finial. The entrances are to the east and west: wooden gables with ornamented
bargeboards supported by flanking paired colonettes with foliate capitals,
on high pedestals.

A terrace surrounds the castle with a battlemented parapet. On the west
side towards the centre are 2 short sections of arcaded wall, one incorporating
in arch some original Norman stone work of zig zag pattern. The interior
of the castle is designed in a mixture of neo-Norman, Gothic and C16 styles.
The drawing room and bedroom in the northern section facing west have the
partly original frames of C16 or early C17 ceilings inserted with carved
and gilded bosses, small brackets and ribs, the whole completed in plaster.


Listing NGR: SU0024961342

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

310461

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry

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