Hedingham Castle

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Keep of Castle Hedingham

Hedingham Castle is built as a stone keep on a Motte castle near the village of Castle Hedingham in the English county of Essex. It is located in the valley of the Colne on the ancient road from Colchester to Cambridge and was for five centuries the ancestral home of the de Vere family.

History

A first Hedingham Castle was already at the end of the 11th or beginning of the 12th century, built on the site of Aubrey de Vere I, a Norman nobleman. He was among the vassals of William the Conqueror, who were rewarded by the success of it with possessions. The Domesday Book of 1086 recorded Aubrey I. as owner, the property belonged to the larger possessions and even owned vineyards.

To present also to the increased importance of the family, was 1130-1150 II or III under Aubrey Aubrey. the main castle built of stone. In 1133 Aubrey II, son and heir of the first Aubrey, by King Henry I the Lord Great Chamberlain was appointed. 1141 was his son Aubrey III. appointed by Empress Matilda for the first Earl of Oxford. As part of the English Succession War, he was forced to cede to King Stephen in 1143, its castles, but a few years later they got back. Mathilda of Boulogne, wife of King Stephen, died on 3 May 1152 Hedingham Castle.

In the years 1216 and 1217 the castle was besieged twice during the dispute between King John and supported by the French heir to the throne rebellious barons. Both sieges lasted only briefly and ended successfully for the besiegers.

In the following centuries the castle was still owned by the de Vere family until Aubrey, 20th Earl of Oxford, died in 1703 without a male heir. His daughter Diana married Charles, the 1st Duke of St. Albans, and Hedingham Castle sold in 1713 to William Ashhurst. After his death, the inheritance passed to the Majendie family, in whose possession the castle then remained for almost 250 years. She then went on to Thomas Lindsay, who both paternal and maternal family was descended from the de Veres. His son, his wife and their children inhabit today Hedingham Castle.

Description

The residential tower very well preserved, stone situated on a natural rocky outcrop, which was extending into western direction in the valley of the Colne and separated with a broad, extending from north to south ditch the rest of the elevated landscape. A circular wall surrounding the inner courtyard, in the center of the tower stands. An outer courtyard extended the arrangement in a southerly direction and is now the core of the village of Castle Hedingham.

The tower is nearly square, measuring 18 by 16 meters with a height of over 21 meters. Two of the patch bay towers are missing at the corners of the main tower, the two surviving oriel towers rise again up to 7.6 meters over the edge of provided with a parapet roof addition. The rubble stone built with lime mortar walls are at the base up to 3.4 meters thick and taper to about 3 meters at the top. Unusually for a castle in Essex is the panel with hewn from a quarry in Northamptonshire.

The tower is five stories high, however, form the second and third floor with a central supporting arch along the imposing Great Hall ( or Banqueting Hall ). The top floor was probably added in the 15th century and replaced a pyramidal roof.

The medieval unique construction is the residential tower. All the other buildings were replaced during the Tudor period, but exist today, with the exception of a stone bridge also no more. This vierbogige bridge of brick connected the inner to the outer courtyard. At the end of the 15th or built at the beginning of the 16th century, it was renovated again and again.

In the inner courtyard there was a chapel, they lay to the south of the residential tower.

A manor house, built of red brick in the architectural style of the reign of Queen Anne, is by William Ashhurst from the period between the purchase of the plant in 1693 and his death in 1719.