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Chillingham Castle
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| Looking for: | Castles, Educational | | Address: | Chillingham
Alnwick
Northumberland | | Postcode: | NE66 5NJ | | Nearest City: | Newcastle | | Telephone: | +44 (0)1668 215 350 |
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Description
| Explore the Castle | | | This remarkable castle with its alarming dungeons and torture chamber has, since the twelve-hundreds, been continuously owned by the family of the Earls Grey and their relations.
You will see active restoration of complex masonry, metalwork and ornamental plaster as the great halls thrive with day to day life. A wide diversity of rooms and style give a refreshing difference to the Castle. |
| Staterooms | | Named after the king who visited Chillingham in 1617 the James 1st Drawing Room is famous for its recently restored Elizabethan ceiling with its gilded ribs and pendants.
The state rooms are brilliantly furnished with both antique and modern furniture and lined with patterned silk screening hung with paintings and enamels.
The castle Library also displays interesting family memorabilia and has a very fine chimney piece.
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| Brave the Torture Chamber and Dungeon! | | A visit to the Torture Chamber is not for the faint hearted. It displays some interesting and gruesome (no longer used!) implements of punishment, including a stretching rack, a bed of nails, a nailed barrel and a spiked chair labelled with a warning not to sit on it!
The serene face of the Iron Maiden with its horrible, larger than life size hinged metal casing for a live body, and the thumb screws, chains, leg irons, cages, man traps and branding irons cry out of a world long past in this country, if not elsewhere in the world.
The castle Dungeon, lighted only by a narrow slit in the thick wall, is marked with the crudely-cut scribbled letters of previous unhappy prisoners. There is a trap-door in the floor through which can be seen the very genuine bones of a child in the vault below.
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| Edward 1st Room | | The most ancient room in the castle, the Edward 1st Room is where the Lords of the castle sat well protected and high above the stench below. The room is named after the 1298 visit of proud Edward, 'Hammer of the Scots' King Edward 1st, in 1298, for whom the gothic window was installed.
The room has been restored as it was in the 13th century with armour, furniture, weapons and implements of its time. Also on display is the castle licence to crenellate, or build battlements, issued in 1344 - something not freely granted as it meant the castle would be difficult for royal troops to assault. The license is drawn up by William Wakefield, secretary to King Edward III.
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| Mediaeval Banquet Halls | | The large Great Hall with its stone flagged floor, tapestries, armour, weapons and heads of deer and wild cattle has an ancient mediaeval atmosphere. It also houses many valuable paintings of historic kings, such as Charles I and James II, and historic figures such as Judge Jeffries and Lord Bacon.
The atmospheric Minstrels' Hall, decorated with spears, tapestries and the world record head of a prehistoric elk, has two huge fireplaces which make it a magnificent setting for banquets regularly held here.
Both rooms make wonderful settings for a variety of Functions held within the Castle. |
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To contact this company with an enquiry please fill out the form below. If you call, please tell them you found them on the CHILDRENS LEISURE website.
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