Astwell Castle (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Astwell House

In the civil parish of Helmdon.
In the historic county of Northamptonshire and the Soke of Peterborough.
Modern Authority of Northamptonshire.
1974 county of Northamptonshire.
Medieval County of Northamptonshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SP60804407
Latitude 52.09165° Longitude -1.11396°

Astwell Castle has been described as a probable Fortified Manor House.

There are masonry ruins/remnants remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.
This is a Grade 2* listed building protected by law*.

Description

Manor house. C15 and early C17, restored 1958. Coursed squared limestone, plain tile roof except for left roof of gatehouse, brick ridge stacks. Gatehouse of former courtyard house, and double-depth house. Entrance front has 3-storey gatehouse to right with part-blocked chamfered doorway with 4-centred head to timber tympanum with ribbed panels and date 1638. First floor string course, and one 2-light stone arch mullion window with cusped head to lights to first and second floors, that to first floor with hood mould. Battlemented parapet with string course to base. Turret rising full height of building to left and second floor window similar to those to front. Rear elevation has similar first floor window with hood mould and similar blocked doorway. Hexagonal stair turret to left corner, rising above the rest of the building with blocked first floor door with 4-centred head. Single-storey link building to left of gatehouse has flat-arched doorway, a quatrefoil window to right of doorway and battlemented parapet with string course at base. House to left has 2 storeys and attic. C20 stone doorway with 4-centred head to left, a 2-light stone mullion window to right. 4-light arch mullion window to ground floor far right with cut spandrels and hood moulds, a similar window to first floor above and similar 3-light windows in twin stone-coped gables with kneelers. Blocked window to first floor above door. Left side has two 3-light arch mullion windows with hood moulds to ground and first floors and blocked central door with moulded stone surround and keyblock. Rear elevation has 5-light leaded C20 casement window to ground floor and 2- and 3-light casements to first and attic floors, all with timber lintels. The left range has a massive stone stack with 4 diagonal brick flues. Interior has chamfered spine beams and stone fireplaces with 4-centred heads one painted to resemble Purbeck marble with moulded jambs, cut spandrels, strapwork above openings and low stone overmantel with arms of the Lovetts and the Shirleys. The fortified manor house to which the existing gatehouse belonged was probably built by Thomas Lovett who exchanged the manors of Rushton and Great Oakley for those of Falcutt and Astwell in 1471. The daughter of the last Thomas Lovett of Astwell married Francis Shirley and their son George Shirley demolished most of the medieval manor house and built a new house beside the gatehouse, completed in 1606. The property was sold to Earl Temple of Stowe in 1763 when Astwell became a tenant farm and a large part of the house was demolished. In 1958 the building was restored for Mrs. Joan Wake. (Listed Building Report)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1003902, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number nn116
National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1041132
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 341441.
Further information may be available from the holder of the county Historic Environment Record.

Websites (Gatehouse is not responsible for the content of external websites.)
- Wikipedia entry
  Welcome to Helmdon
Books
- Salter, Mike, 2002, The Castles of the East Midlands (Malvern: Folly Publications) p. 70
  Emery, Anthony, 2000, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales Vol. 2 East Anglia, Central England and Wales (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) p. 220-1
  Heward, John and Taylor, Robert, 1996, The country houses of Northamptonshire p. 69-72
  Pettifer, A., 1995, English Castles, A guide by counties (Woodbridge: Boydell Press) p. 164
  King, D.J.C., 1983, Castellarium Anglicanum (London: Kraus) Vol. 2 p. 320 (reject)
  RCHME, 1982, An inventory of the historical monuments in the County of Northampton Vol. 4: South-west Northamptonshire (HMSO) p. 80-88 nos. 6, 12 online transcription
  Pevsner, Nikolaus; revised by Bridget Cherry, 1973, Buildings of England: Northamptonshire (Penguin) p. 96
  Turner, T.H. and Parker, J.H., 1859, Some account of Domestic Architecture in England (Oxford) Vol. 3 Part 2 p. 245 online copy
Periodical Articles
- 1959, 'Astwell Manor House: History in Stone' Northamptonshire Past and Present Vol. 2.6
  Markham, C.A., 1925, 'Astwell Castle in Northamptonshire' Associated Architectural Societies' reports and papers (Lincoln, York, Northampton, Bedford, Worcester, Leicester and Sheffield) Vol. 27 p. 308-15
Guidebooks
- Joan Wake, Astwell Manor House (a guide reprinted from Northamptonshire Past and Present)
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Camden, Wm, 1607, Britannia hypertext critical edition by Dana F. Sutton (2004)
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Historic England, 2016, Heritage at Risk East Midlands Register 2016 (London: Historic England) p. 54 (new entry) online copy

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

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