Auckland Castle

Auckland Castle serves as the official residence of the Bishop of Durham, diocesan office, and contains two independent flats. The manor house was probably begun for Bishop du Puiset (1153–95) and completed in the first half of the 13th century, with alterations and enlargements for Bishop Bek (1284–1311). The Scotland Wing probably originated as a 16th-century long gallery for Bishop Tunstall, later converted to a granary. This wing underwent mid-18th-century division into rooms and further alterations around 1980, including insertion of a mezzanine floor.

The north-south range has seen numerous alterations and additions, including around 1530 when a south dining room was added for Bishops Ruthal and Tunstall, and substantial rebuilding dated 1664 for Bishop Cosin. Further work was carried out 1767–72 for Bishops Trevor and Egerton, possibly by John Carr, and around 1795 for Bishop Barrington by James Wyatt. The medieval portions are built of coursed rubble, while later sections are mostly coursed squared sandstone with ashlar dressings. Roofs are covered in Lakeland slate and lead, except the Scotland Wing which has concrete tiles.

Plan

The irregular plan reflects the building's complex evolution. The medieval manor included a great hall running west-east at the eastern part of the site, with its own services at the east end. This great hall is now the Chapel of St Peter. To the west, probably originally with an extruded stair in the angle between, a kitchen range ran north-south. From this range the Scotland Wing extends east-west.

Exterior

The east elevation presents two storeys of varied heights in a 1:1:1:4 bay arrangement. At the left, a one-bay mid to late 18th-century section projects slightly and features a flat-headed three-light ground-floor window with Gothick glazing bars and traceried heads under a label mould. Above is a tall sash with intersecting glazing bars set in a Tudor-arched window with dripmould. To the right of this bay, a straight join leads to a two-bay L-plan section with stone-mullioned three-light windows featuring trefoil tracery and moulded spandrels under flat heads with dripmoulds. A shallow elliptical-headed door at the right provides access to private apartments and offices. The large window above has stone Y tracery between two lights with Gothick glazing bars under a dripmould.

The next bay breaks forward with a polygonal projecting bay window to the front and two windows in the returns, with a ground-floor dripstring. The front bay window and the rear window on the return have ogee heads to the ground-floor lights, set below a band that originally had a battlemented parapet before the upper floor was added. This band features richly carved arms of Ruthall and Tunstall with moulded surrounds. This section has a moulded plinth and quoins at the right. Set back above is the second floor of the 17th-century front range, with three-light stone-mullioned traceried windows, the left one blocked.

The four-bay state room range, set back to the right, has a high ashlar plinth and rainwater heads dated 1664, with a tall first floor. The three-light ground-floor windows have stone mullions and heads, while the first-floor sashes feature Gothick glazing bars, except in the fourth bay which is obscured by a lower projection containing the porch to the Chapel of St Peter. All parapets are battlemented. The state room features full-height buttresses with pinnacles, and the angles have ogee domes characteristic of Cosin's work, as seen in the Chapel of St Peter. The roofs are low-pitched and flat except for the Scotland Wing, which has steeply pitched roofs to both the main range and a shorter second rear parallel range.

The left return presents a symmetrical south elevation to the 18th-century addition, with a 1:3:1 window arrangement, the centre forming a canted bay. A set-back low-pitched gable to the left of centre has a blocked roundel under battlements. A similar gable is set back at the right to the state rooms.

The Scotland Wing at the west has a south elevation of three storeys and ten windows. Large square buttresses with many offsets extend to the first two floors to the right of the fourth window and almost full height to the left of the third window from the right end. A coped truncated chimney projection stands at the centre. The ground floor has Tudor stone heads and label moulds to a ledged boarded door at the left and a half-glazed door at the right. The flat-headed windows, all renewed and most blocked, have chamfered stone surrounds and label moulds. Sashes, smaller on the first floor, feature fine glazing bars with Gothic heads. The left return has a first-floor stone oriel on stone corbels, and the eaves have been raised in brick from a swept to straight pitch. The rear of the entire building displays much medieval detail and fine 18th-century Gothick work.

Interior

The entrance hall to the domestic range and offices features mid-18th-century Classical stone arcades. The ground-floor library to the right has beams on corbels and a truncated stone pillar in the centre of the bay window. Offices to the left contain mid-18th-century detail including a Greek key fret on the fireplace in the Secretary's room. Above, the private apartments at the rear, partly on a mezzanine floor, have broad glazing bars to windows facing west and in part of the Scotland Wing. Blocked narrow splayed medieval windows are partly revealed in cupboards on the east wall.

At the north end, a private oratory contains re-used 16th-century panelling with painted heraldic devices of various European monarchs and English counties along the frieze. Raine describes such panelling as being in 'the housekeeper's room', which appears to have been in the bay with the projecting window to the right of the private entrance. Rooms at the south in Wyatt's extension have late 18th-century stucco decoration.

The dining room, known as the King Charles Room, features rich mid-18th-century rococo decoration, including a chimney piece with a cornice breaking forward in scroll brackets, pilasters and inlay of coloured marble with a carved panel on the frieze showing children and a bird's nest. The ceiling displays stucco work of the Italian York school with a central sunburst and rich mouldings, plus six-panel doors in architraves, the mid-18th-century ones with cornices, some with broken pediments, on pulvinated friezes.

The state rooms are entered through a ground-floor room formerly known as the Gentlemen's Hall, which has Wyatt decoration applied to an older structure with beams and a ceiling stuccoed with blind tracery, plus a Gothick chimney piece with a re-used 17th-century carved wood overmantel. Wyatt inserted an Imperial stair at the west end of this room, with paired shafted Gothick balusters and a ramped moulded handrail. The half-landing and landing windows are large sashes with delicate glazing bars. All doors in the state rooms are panelled with blind tracery. From the vestibule onwards, all doors to rooms and cupboards in the major rooms are set in Gothick arches with dripmoulds.

Wyatt divided Cosin's long chamber, which still has its wide floorboards in situ, to create an ante-room and throne room, both with Gothick detail including ribbed stucco ceiling panels. The ante-room has canted corners with arched niches. The throne room has a delicate stucco shallow canopy to the throne and a grey marble or limestone Gothick chimney piece.

The state dining room to the south is mid-18th-century with rich decoration, including a chimney piece with terms supporting a cornice over a moulded frieze, deep dado rail, and coved ceiling with guilloche panels featuring two leaf swirls for lights and a central painted arms of Bishop Trevor.

At the north end of this range, Bishop Trevor added private apartments now known as the Victoria Flat. These have fine mid-18th-century decoration including pronounced dado rails with dentilled enrichment in the bedroom, and good chimney pieces in two bedrooms. Some ceiling cornices survive, all doors are six-panelled, and in the north room, Bishop Trevor's arms appear on the chimney piece. One room was divided mid-19th-century to provide a kitchen and bathroom, but the canted corner chimney breast survives although the chimney piece has been removed or obscured.

In the angled passage to this flat from a narrow stair to the left of the chapel porch, the walls must be 18th-century lining. A small door high in this wall, at first-floor level, reveals painted wall decoration extending across two floor levels, showing a Cross of Lorraine and other heraldic devices, which are difficult to see. The Cross of Lorraine appears as part of Bishop Bek's patriarchal seal. This painting could have been executed to decorate the grand stair that was removed by Wyatt. In the east corridor of this flat, a cupboard with 17th-century doors is set in the rear of the west wall of the chapel.

The former kitchen range has three octagonal stone piers down the centre, with fireplace detail obscured by boiler fittings. The north door of the principal room is late 15th-century, ledged and boarded with a hollow-moulded Tudor arch, and has part of an inscription carved in the spandrels. A similar inscription in a serving hatch of Durham Castle kitchen, inscribed 1499 for Bishop Fox, is complete and reads "Est Deo Gracia", suggesting that a door to the left has been removed. In a small room to the north of this, now fitted as public toilets, a creeing trough is set in a square mortared rubble block beside steps to the right of the door.

The Scotland Wing shows evidence of early fabric on the ground floor, although much is obscured by plaster and removed by alterations. There is a deeply splayed blocked door in the centre north, with a smoothly dressed octagonal stone slab with rough edges set on a round stone pedestal beside the door. In the west bay is a deeply-chamfered door. In the short north range, a staircase was inserted around 1980. On the first floor, a damaged elliptical fire lintel on the south wall now stands high above the inserted mezzanine floor. Offices at the west end include a boxed-in medieval pointed arch, a garderobe chamber on the north wall, and a mid-18th-century chimney piece and stucco ceiling cornice. Upper floor rooms have around 1700 two-panel doors.

The roof has been partly inspected. The throne room has king and queen posts with bolted struts to rafters from the posts, and much old graffiti made by workmen. The Scotland Wing has collared pegged trusses with purlins at the ridge and two levels at the sides.

The full account of this building's history by Raine gives many extracts from building accounts but must be read bearing in mind that Raine had not understood that the medieval hall is the present chapel.