Raby Castle

Raby Castle is a major medieval fortress with extensive later alterations, dating from the early to mid-14th century and probably incorporating earlier buildings. A licence to crenellate was granted in 1379. The castle underwent partial demolition and rebuilding around 1620, followed by extensive 18th-century alterations and additions by Daniel Garrett, James Paine, and John Carr. Further significant work was carried out around 1814 by Joseph Browne, in 1844–8 by William Burn, and in 1864 and later by Austin and Johnson.

The castle was the property of the Neville family until it was forfeited to the Crown after the 6th Earl of Westmorland took part in the 1569 Rising of the North. In 1626 it was acquired by Sir Henry Vane, whose descendants became successively Baron Barnard (Christopher Vane, 1698), Earl of Darlington (Henry Vane, 1754), and Duke of Cleveland (William Harry Vane, 1833).

Construction and Materials

The castle is built of coursed blocks of millstone grit for Bulmer's Tower and limestone elsewhere, with a plinth, some quoins, and ashlar dressings. The roofs are covered in Lakeland slate.

Plan and Towers

The castle has an irregular plan with nine perimeter towers. Moving clockwise from the north, these are: Clifford's Tower, Kitchen Tower, Mount Raskelf Tower, Chapel Tower, Bulmer's Tower, Octagon Tower, Joan's Tower, Neville Gateway, and Watch Tower. These are connected by linking buildings and curtain walls. The Keep stands in the yard, attached to the south-west corner of the Kitchen Tower, with a smaller yard beside the Kitchen. Apart from the Octagon and the pentagonal Bulmer's Tower, all towers are rectangular. The Great Hall runs along the east side of the main yard, linking the Kitchen and Octagon towers.

West Front and Neville Gateway

The principal entrance is the Neville Gateway in the west front. This features four-storey splayed projections flanking a four-centred arched gateway with trefoil-pendant decoration under machicolations and a renewed two-light window. Garter ribbons encircle badges of Neville (John de Neville, Knight of the Garter 1369, died 1388), his second wife Elizabeth Latymer, and St George's cross, set in a band below the top machicolations. The flanking turrets have Garrett quatrefoils on the ground floor and loops on the top floors, with 19th-century lights on other floors.

The front of the Neville Gateway is an addition corresponding to the front extension of Joan's Tower to the right, to which it is linked by a two-storey medieval wall with L-plan 18th-century one-storey additions. Joan's Tower was originally three storeys but was raised to four by Carr. The west front has three windows: the left window is in a projecting bay with a single trefoil-headed light on each floor; the two right bays have two-light windows, those on the first floor with cusped ogee-headed lights and those on the second floor with trefoil heads.

To the left of the Neville Gateway, a three-storey, four-bay section links Clifford's Tower (five storeys with irregular fenestration and an 18th-century door) with the high one-bay Watch Tower. The three-storey section contains the 'Old Servants' Hall' on the ground floor, probably a former guard room, with trefoil-headed lights. There are three similar first-floor windows and four paired second-floor windows.

North and South Elevations

The north elevation on the left return features a heavily machicolated curtain wall linking Clifford's and Kitchen towers, with a wide low two-centred arch inserted. The south elevation on the right return has a two-storey, four-bay range with paired lights linking Joan's Tower with the Octagon. This is Burn's 1845 construction, replacing Carr's incomplete round tower on the site of a medieval south tower destroyed by fire in the mid-18th century. Burn's work includes a high five-light transomed window in the dining room to the right of the Octagon, an ante-library extruded addition to the left, and at the east end the five-stage tapered Bulmer's Tower with a left stair turret. The stair turret has a shouldered head to the ground-floor entrance and varied fenestration.

East Front

The east front shows two initial letter 'B's under head-stopped dripmoulds on the top floor of Bulmer's Tower, a reference by John de Neville to his ancestor Bertram Bulmer. There are 19th-century windows in the three-bay link to Chapel Tower, which has a high 19th-century doorway replacing a medieval barbican, fragments of which survive in Raby House Farm and The Folly. Two tall turrets flank a recessed two-light chapel window with reticulated tracery under machicolation.

To the right of the chapel, a three-storey bay links to Mount Raskelf. In this link, a door and two-light window have hollow-chamfered cusped surrounds. Mount Raskelf has three set-back storeys, each with one window of paired cusped lights. Set back at the right is the massive Kitchen Tower of three set-back storeys with two first-floor windows and a central octagonal roof lantern, raised by Carr.

Gateways and Passages

The passage through the Neville Gateway has a ribbed vault on slender half-octagonal crenellated shafts, and guard-room doors with diagonally-stopped chamfers. The inner earlier passage is barrel-vaulted on chamfered ribs.

Interior: Medieval Structures

Medieval structures that remain little altered include the kitchen, keep, and 'Old Servants' Hall'. The kitchen, probably designed by John Lewyn, has a basement vaulted with eight ribs springing from a central octagonal pillar. The main floor has four wide-arched ovens. A blocked flight of steps on the south side (with a 17th-century balustrade) leads towards the Great Hall and gives access to a passage in the wall linking the kitchen windows and roof on two pairs of segmental-arched ribs, the crossing framing a central louvre.

The Keep, formerly with no external access, has eight-foot thick walls containing garderobes and wall chambers, original window openings, and vaulted ceilings. The 'Old Servants' Hall' is in a similar style but with a two-centred arched vault. In Clifford's Tower, a medieval stair on segmental arches runs in the south wall from first floor to roof levels. In the stair turret of Bulmer's Tower there are blocked medieval doors from several periods.

18th-Century Alterations

Extensive 18th-century alterations include rooms on the first floor of the south range, with a Palladian door to the north corridor featuring a key block inscribed 'HGV 1729', unattributed at the time of survey. Drawings by James Gibbs exist for unexecuted work at Raby.

Garrett's work of around 1745 includes state rooms in Clifford's Tower, particularly the richly decorated three-apsed drawing room with niches in the window apses, and the dining room. Both have enriched mouldings on dados and six-panel doors, and rococo stucco ceilings with modillion cornices. Perritt was paid in 1737 for plaster work; if this was Thomas Perritt it would be among his earliest work, as he was made Freeman of York in 1737/8. Other payments to 1753 were made to Thomas Perritt and to Rose and Perritt. Garrett's Hunters' Gallery in Gothic style links Clifford's and Watch Towers at first-floor level. It has head corbels and egg-and-dart moulded ogee arches, and a lantern with intersecting broad glazing bars.

Paine, restoring the interior in the mid-18th century, executed interior work including a Gothic bedroom in the Neville Gateway and several classical-style rooms.

Carr's work beginning around 1767 included alterations and additions to domestic arrangements in the kitchen yard, but most significantly the creation of a carriageway through the castle from west to east. This required the removal of ceilings and floors in the Great Hall and in Chapel Tower. He inserted two rows of octagonal columns and false vaulting in the lower, now entrance hall, where visitors would alight. He raised the vault of the east gate and demolished the barbican to allow the exit of carriages.

19th and Early 20th-Century Work

Around 1814, Joseph Browne enlarged the dining room in the south range and encased the entrance hall pillars in red scagliola.

Between 1843 and 1848, William Burn made extensive alterations, including a vigorous Jacobean-style drawing room in the Octagon Tower, and new roofs for the Great Hall and the Chapel.

Austin and Johnson's work included a grand Jacobean-style north stair to the Baron's Hall or Great Hall, and the renewal of many windows.

In 1901, J.P. Pritchett restored the interior of the chapel and revealed a medieval aumbry, sedilia, and piscina, although below the present ground level. The west arcade of the chapel was filled with painted portraits. The chapel windows contain reset medieval glass from France and Flanders, 16th-century German glass, and other heraldic glass.