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Medieval castle in England

Shirburn Castle is a Grade I listed, moated castle located at the village of Shirburn, near Watlington, Oxfordshire. Originally constructed in the fourteenth century, it was renovated and remodelled in the Georgian era by Thomas Parker, the first Earl of Macclesfield who made it his family seat, and altered further in the early nineteenth century. The Earls of Macclesfield remained in residence until 2004, and the castle is still (2022) owned by the Macclesfield family company. It formerly contained an important, early eighteenth century library which, along with valuable paintings, sculptures, and other artifacts including furniture, remained in the ownership of the 9th Earl and were largely dispersed at auction following his departure from the property; notable among these items were George Stubbs's 1768 painting "Brood Mares and Foals", a record setter for the artist at auction in 2010, the Macclesfield Psalter, numerous rare and valuable books, and personal correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton. On account of its "fairy tale" external appearance and unmodernised interior, the castle has been used on occasion for film and television settings and is possibly best known to the outside world via that route, since it remains in private hands, no roads pass it, and it is generally not open to the public for visiting. In addition, any history of the castle is somewhat obscured by lack of permitted access to scholars of medieval architecture over the past one (to two) hundred years as well as by conflicting statements in available published accounts; these include that the present castle has Norman origins and/or is on the site of a Norman precursor (not supported by any evidence), that the castle is an early example of brick construction (based on a mis interpretation), and that the castle was badly damaged during the English Civil War prior to its rebuilding in the eighteenth century (no evidence exists for this assertion). A further piece of apparently deliberate misinformation was a claim that "Shirburn Castle" was visited by a tutor of Dante at the end of the thirteenth century, before the present structure was known to exist; the 1802 document upon which this assertion was based was subsequently shown to be a forgery.

The land on which Shirburn resides was part owned the Norman nobleman Robert D'Oyly who accompanied William the Conqueror on his conquest of England in 1066. Various nineteenth century sources, stemming in the main from a short "History of Shirburn Castle" compiled by Lady Macclesfield in 1887, state that D'Oyly constructed a castle there, which was described as having been surrendered to Empress Matilda (or Maud) in 1141 as part of a ransom negotiation. Later one Warin(e) de Lisle (or de Insula), apparently possessed the estate; this Warin was executed at York in 1322 for taking part in an insurrection. Subsequently, his widow was pardoned and her late husband's lands restored; whether these included a Norman castle at Shirburn, or whether such a structure even existed in that form, has not been verified by subsequent researchers and may in fact simply reflect a desire of the then occupants to claim a more ancient origin for the castle than was actually the case; the relevant chapter of the Victoria County History notes only the previous existence of a manor (West Shirburn, which together with its counterpart at East Shirburn formed the twin manors of the district), which belonged in the 13th century to Robert de Burghfield, "likely to have been on the site" of the present castle. A supposed account of a pre 1300 visit to a "castle" at Shirburn by Brunetto Latini, the tutor of Dante, also quoted in nineteenth century sources, was revealed as a forgery per a book published in 1948 (see relevant section of the Victoria County History, footnote 18).

A "licence to crenellate" (generally interpreted as permission to build) the present castle was granted to the earlier Warin's grandson, Warin de Lisle in 1377, with actual construction taking place around 1378. The present, still moated, two to three storey building has a quadrangular form with four rounded corner towers. Rendered on the exterior (although the covering has now disappeared in places), it has been stated as being the earliest brick building in Oxfordshire, however this appears to be based on a misconception: Emery, cited below, believes that the original construction was probably built entirely in limestone, with the brick "casing" added only when the castle was remodelled in 1720 in the Georgian style. Emery writes:

Emery also compares and contrasts de Lisle's castle at Shirburn with that constructed a few years later by Sir Edward Dalyngrigge at Bodiam in Sussex, noting similarities in original architectural features but also that Shirburn "seems to have had less of a martial air than the castle at Bodiam", in particular that the "formidable twin towered gate house" at Bodiam presents a stronger front than its equivalent at Shirburn. After de Lisle's death in 1382, the castle passed to his daughter, who married Lord Berkeley, and then to her daughter who married Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and eventually sold to the Chamberlain family, commencing with Edward Chamberlain, whose mother took out a lease on the Shirburn estate from her brother in 1505 and who died there in 1543. The castle's next owner was Sir Leonard Chamberlain (or Chamberlayne), d.1561, who was also the Governor of Guernsey from 1553. An account survives from 1559 documenting something of the internal layout of the rooms at that time, specifically: "the wardrobe, the entry, the great chamber at the lower end of the hall, the inner chamber, 'the brusshynge howse', the hall and the chamber over the parlour, and an inner chamber there; there was also a cellar, buttery, chambers each for the butler, priest, horse keeper, cook, and chamberlains, an additional chamber, a low parlour, a kitchen larder, boulting house, fish house, garner, brew house, and other outhouses". The appearance of the castle prior to its sale to Parker in 1716 is not known in detail from contemporary accounts or illustrations; it does appear (as a small icon) on Robert Plot's 1677 "Map of Oxfordshire" (relevant portion reproduced at right), similar to the castle of today, although whether this is intended to be a "stock" castle representation or an actual likeness is unclear. Emery, 2006, suggests that many features of its original external and likely internal appearance probably would have resembled its near contemporary at Bodiam in Sussex; according to later illustrations, this armoury was retained as a feature of the post 1716 remodelling of the castle by Thomas Parker (refer next section), and can be glimpsed in the 1823 engraving by J. Skelton entitled "Ancient Entrance Hall of Shirburn Castle" (refer "external links"). The castle continued as the seat of that branch of the Gage family until 1714, when the eldest son, another Thomas Gage succeeded his wife Elizabeth's late father to the estate of High Meadow, a property in Gloucestershire, and associated "considerable fortune". He then decided to sell Shirburn.

In 1716 the castle was acquired by Thomas Parker (1666–1732), Baron (later to be the first Earl) of Macclesfield and subsequently Lord Chancellor of England from 1718 to 1725, the purchase price (for Shirburn plus another property, Clare manor) being £25,696 8s. 5d. (more than £2 million in recent money); Mowl and Earnshaw, cited below, state that according to "a manuscript note made by Parker", the portion of the purchase price actually allocated to the castle exclusive of the grounds was £7,000, and that he also spent an additional £42,297 on the land needed for the park. On the other hand, other sources available imply that the castle was surrendered in the Civil War without damage, and there is no other documentary evidence of its condition or need for extensive repairs prior to its purchase by Thomas Parker in 1716. Parker, who was extremely wealthy, may simply have decided to "refashion" the castle to suit his taste; whether or not this makes the result a "sham" is left for the reader to decide. and also started to accumulate the castle's extensive and important library, which survived intact for almost 300 years until its dispersal. Thomas Parker's son George, later to inherit the earldom and castle upon his father's death, set out for Italy on the "Grand Tour" in 1719 for a trip lasting almost three years, during which time he was commissioned by his father to acquire "important works" for the castle, the fruits of which included numerous plaster busts (casts of antique originals) plus at least 13 similar bronzes. The Earls of Macclesfield are (or at least were) protective of their privacy, allowing few visitors to see the inside of the castle and denying requests for access for an examination to scholars of medieval architecture, with the result that Anthony Emery wrote in 2006: "Shirburn Castle has a well deserved reputation for being barred to all students of architecture Consequently, the castle has never been studied in detail The list [of persons denied entry] extends from Lord Torrington in 1775 to Nikolaus Pevsner, the architectural staff of Country Life, and the Department of the Environment recorders 200 years later. Not surprisingly, Shirburn has been ignored by all writers on castles except for the summaries of ownership by Sir James Mackenzie, The Castles of England, 1 (1897) 163 5 and Sir Charles Oman, Castles (1926) 46 9". The Victoria County History also suggests that: "The present south range may represent the medieval south range, with new windows inserted and with another range of rooms added to the south, outside the original outer wall." The same authors also point to Vanbrugh Castle, a London house designed and built by John Vanbrugh in 1719 for his own family, as a similar expression of neo medievalism of around the same date, again with rounded windows, in contrast to the more pointed windows associated with the mid 18th century "Gothick" style of a few decades later. The rounded window style appears to have been used consistently in the Parker era rebuild or renovation, including in all of the surviving inward facing walls surrounding the courtyard, although from 1830, the effect was masked by the incorporation of more "standard" segmental headed sash windows in the new external additions along several frontages. George Parker, the 2nd Earl of Macclesfield (c.1695–1764) resided at Shirburn and inherited the earldom and the castle upon his father's death in 1732. He was celebrated as an astronomer and spent much time conducting astronomical observations at Shirburn, where he built an observatory and a chemical laboratory. The observatory was "equipped with the finest existing instruments" and the 2nd Earl used it from 1740. In 1761 the astronomer Thomas Hornsby observed the transit of Venus from the castle grounds. A 1778 mezzotint by James Watson, a copy of which is now in the National Maritime Museum, shows the 2nd Earl's two astronomical assistants, Thomas Phelps and John Bartlett, at work in the observatory.

To reduce future tax liabilities, in 1922 ownership of the castle was transferred from the Seventh Earl, George Loveden Parker to the Beechwood Estates Company (the Macclesfield family estate management company), with equity divided among the family members. Unfortunately for the succession, however, this had the result of decoupling ownership and the automatic right to occupy the castle from inheritance of the title, and in the early 21st century, following a long running and acrimonious court battle, Richard Timothy George Mansfield Parker, the 9th Earl of Macclesfield and last member of the family to reside at the castle, was evicted from the family seat by the other family members, departing in 2005: the 9th Earl contending that a "draft lease" gave him the right to occupy the whole of the castle—or at least a portion of it—for his lifetime in exchange for an appropriate rent payable to the family company (of which the terms were yet to be agreed), however this was contested, ultimately successfully, by the company who contended that he was "no more than [a] tenant at will [of the company]", whose tenancy could therefore be terminated. The 9th Earl lost the occupancy of the house, but retained ownership of the contents (gifted to him in 1967 by his grandfather, the Seventh Earl) including three libraries containing many rarities among their more than 30,000 volumes, largely assembled by the first two Earls of Macclesfield in the first part of the 18th century. Following his departure from the castle, the 9th Earl made the decision to sell the contents of the libraries, as well as some other items from the castle's holdings. The library items were prepared for a series of auctions, and were catalogued for the first time by staff from Sotheby's in 2004; among the most notable items discovered were a first edition of Copernicus's 1543 landmark work "On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres", annotated by the celebrated 17th century Oxford mathematician John Greaves, which sold at auction for £666,400, and a unique and superbly illustrated 252 page 14th century illuminated manuscript, the Macclesfield Psalter, now in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Other items originally forming part of the library were a collection of Welsh material which went to form part of the foundation collections of the National Library of Wales, correspondence of Sir Isaac Newton and other scientific papers which were sold to Cambridge University Library, and manuscripts including the original of the "Shirburn Ballads" (previously transcribed and published in 1907), the Liber de Hyda and the Macclesfield Alphabet Book, these items purchased by the British Library. The breaking up and dispersal by auction of the library was lamented by some, including Roger Gaskell and Patricia Fara, who in 2005 wrote: "Now, without any public discussion, the Macclesfield Library is being broken up. Far more than simply a collection of old books belonging to one man, it is a fabulous treasure trove containing many of the most significant books, owned and annotated by several leading British figures in the history of European science Formed in the 17th and 18th centuries, this is a coherent collection that was the working library of an intellectual and scientific powerhouse." On completion of the initial round of 6 sales of the scientific portion of the collection, Sotheby's issued a 2005 press release indicating that the sale process had thus far realised in excess of £14 million (not including The Macclesfield Psalter, which sold separately for £1,685,600), representing "the highest total ever for any sale of scientific books and manuscripts". Additional parts of the library sold by Sotheby's between 2006 and 2008, under the general heading "The Library of the Earls of Macclesfield, Removed from Shirburn Castle", comprised "Bibles 1477 1739" (part 7), "Theology, Philosophy, Law, and Economics" (part 8, which realised £1.3 million), "Voyages Travel and Atlases" (part 9), "Applied Arts and Sciences, including Military and Naval Books" (part 10), "English Books and Manuscripts" (part 11) and "Continental Books and Manuscripts" (part 12, which realised £1.8 million). Further selections from the library were offered at auction by Maggs Brothers, U. K. in 2010 and 2012. A set of 328 bound theology volumes acquired from the Macclesfield collection sale now forms part of the Kinlaw Library at Asbury University, a private Christian university in Wilmore, Kentucky, U. S. A. The castle contents also included a number of fine paintings, one of which, George Stubbs's 1768 masterpiece "Brood Mares and Foals", subsequently sold at auction in 2010 for £10,121,250, a record price for the British artist. This painting was visible, in passing, on the wall in a room at the castle used for filming in the 1992 episode "Happy families" of the Inspector Morse TV series (see below). Previously, a 1740 William Hogarth portrait of the second Earl's tutor and mathematician William Jones, was sold at auction in 1984 for £280,000, and is now in the National Portrait Gallery. Earlier in 1998, an extremely fine Georgian silver wine set, the only known complete example of its era to survive, had been sold by Christies and is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, its purchase assisted by a £750,000 grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund. The Shirburn collection of sculptures, described in a Christie's lot essay as "one of the most important English collections of sculpture to be assembled in the 18th century", Two bronzes from this sale that do not appear on the cited Christie's page, "Dancing Faun" and "Medici Venus" by Pietro Cipriani, both copies of original antique statues in the Uffizi Gallery, are now in the Getty Museum in the U. S. A.; some other items from that sale have since appeared again on the auction market. Two other items of cultural interest, a c.1721 22 marble sculpture of Hebe plus a second of Ganymede and the Eagle, both by the Italian sculptor Antonio Montauti, acquired by Parker circa 1723 25 and located since then at Shirburn, subsequently thought "lost" but stated in 2009 to be "the property of a lady", sold at auction for £79,250 each in 2009. In 2022, a fine portrait of the Second Earl by Sebastiano Conca also appeared on the market, described as "the property of a nobleman", after being "in the North Library at Shirburn Castle, Oxfordshire, and by descent to the current owner", selling at Christie's for £378,000. The contents of the early eighteenth century armoury, including items from both the Gage and Parker eras, were also sold following the 9th earl's departure. A privately produced account of the armoury was written by Alan Brett in 2007. Another two items of interest from the collection were two superbly illustrated botanical albums consisting of original paintings of plants, by Mary Countess of Macclesfield (wife of the Third Earl) and her daughter Lady Elizabeth Parker, dating from the period 1756–1767; both ladies were instructed by Georg Dionysius Ehret, the pre eminent botanical artist of the day and their paintings follow his style closely. These were sold at auction by Maggs Bros. in 2022 for £225,000 and now reside in the Huntington Library in the U. S. A. Since the departure of the 9th Earl, the castle appears to have remained largely vacant and, at that time, in need of substantial repairs (estimated as "some £2.6 million" in 2003). Although its name is not mentioned, the castle is also recognisably one of several offered as "castle" film locations as described via the Location Works agency.

The castle sits within extensive grounds (Shirburn Park, itself Grade II listed), which is described in more detail at the relevant "Historic England" listing, with the brief description "Later C18 and early C19 garden and pleasure grounds around a late C14 castle, remodelled 1720s and early C19, set in a landscape park incorporating the remains of an early to mid C18 formal layout." It incorporates a rotunda and a former orangery, the latter now derelict. Mowl and Earnshaw note that the development of the gardens was probably unfinished on account of Thomas Parker's well known downfall and financial troubles from 1725 onwards, and that further developments were likely undertaken by the second Earl in a classical style, forming a stylistic contrast with what they characterise as the neo Medieval nature of the first Earl's renovated castle. internal rooms, the gatehouse entrance and the church as Midsomer Priory for a 2011 episode "A Sacred Trust" of the Midsomer Murders TV series (although exterior shots of the "priory" house feature Greys Court, another Oxfordshire location), as well as an exterior shot of Mycroft Holmes's country estate for the 2011 film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows. The location has also been used in 2 episodes of Poirot, namely "Third Girl" (2008) and "Curtain: Poirot's Last Case" (2013); in Annie: A Royal Adventure! (1995 TV movie), Philomena (2013), in the TV serial London Spy (2015) and—with a certain amount of digital manipulation to remove post medieval alterations—in The Old Guard (2020). A 2016 Burberry commercial, "The Tale of Thomas Burberry" was also mainly filmed at Shirburn Castle. In the 2011 Midsomer Murders Episode "A Sacred Trust", the coat of arms of the fictitious Vertue family, Lords of the Manor and as represented in the supposedly local pub "The Vertue Arms", is constructed almost identically to that of the (real) Parker family, Earls of Macclesfield and owners of the film location for the fictitious priory at Shirburn Castle.