Sudeley Castle

Summary

A Grade I listed castle at Winchcombe in Gloucestershire, with medieval origins, substantially rebuilt in the 1440s and 1460s for Ralph Boteler, 1st Baron Sudeley; confiscated by Edward IV; granted to Thomas Seymour and used by Catherine Parr, whose tomb is in the adjacent St Mary’s Chapel; partially ruined following Civil War slighting in 1649; restored from 1837 by the Dent family (later Dent-Brocklehurst), with St Mary’s chapel restored by George Gilbert Scott; private home of the Dent-Brocklehurst family; used as a filming location for Beauty and the Beast (ITV, 1976), Martin Chuzzlewit (BBC, 1994), Tess of the D’Urbervilles (BBC, 2008), The White Princess (Starz, 2017), and other productions.

About this location

Sudeley Castle stands at Winchcombe in the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, on the edge of a valley below Cleeve Hill. A castle has stood on the site since at least the 12th century. The present complex largely derives from a rebuilding programme of the 1440s and 1460s under Ralph Boteler, 1st Baron Sudeley, who constructed the Portmore Tower, the Tithe Barn, and the Dungeon Tower and the banqueting hall range that survives as a ruin. Following Boteler’s bankruptcy, Edward IV confiscated the castle. It passed through the crown and several owners before being granted to Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, who married Catherine Parr — Henry VIII’s widow and the last of his six wives — in 1547. Catherine lived at Sudeley and died there in 1548 after giving birth to a daughter; she is buried in the adjacent St Mary’s Chapel, whose monument to her is the only one to a queen consort in private hands.

After Thomas Seymour’s execution in 1549, the castle returned to the Crown and fell into managed neglect. During the English Civil War it was held for the Royalists, besieged three times, and slighted by order of Parliament in 1649. The east wing collapsed; the banqueting hall lost its roof; the chapel fell into ruin.

From 1837, the merchant brothers John and William Dent purchased the castle and undertook a restoration programme which departed from complete rebuilding, deliberately retaining the picturesque quality of the ruined east wing while making the west wing habitable. George Gilbert Scott directed restoration of the castle’s free-standing St Mary’s Chapel. Further works continued through the Victorian period. The castle passed by descent to the Dent-Brocklehurst family and is today the private home of Elizabeth, Lady Ashcombe and her family.

The include a sequence of formal and informal gardens, including the Queen’s Garden (on the site of Catherine Parr’s original garden), the Knot Garden, the Tudor Rose and Mulberry Gardens, and a walled kitchen garden. The ruined banqueting hall provides a romantic backdrop in the gardens.

Film and television productions at Sudeley Castle include: Beauty and the Beast (ITV, 1976, directed by Harley Cokliss, based on the fairy tale); Martin Chuzzlewit (BBC One, 1994, written by David Lodge, starring Paul Scofield as old Martin Chuzzlewit and Pete Postlethwaite, adapted from Dickens’s novel); Heavy Weather (BBC, 1995, adapted from P.G. Wodehouse’s Blandings novel, starring Richard Briers as Lord Emsworth — Sudeley is regarded as a possible inspiration for Blandings Castle); Tess of the D’Urbervilles (BBC One, 2008, written by David Nicholls, starring Gemma Arterton as Tess and Eddie Redmayne as Angel Clare, adapted from Thomas Hardy’s novel); Father Brown (BBC One, 2013 onwards, starring Mark Williams as Father Brown, which has filmed at the castle on multiple occasions); The White Princess (Starz, 2017, created by Emma Frost, starring Jodie Comer as Elizabeth of York, following on from The White Queen).