Stainborough Castle

Stainborough Castle is a Grade II* Gothick folly built between 1728 and 1730 for Thomas Wentworth, the 1st Earl of Strafford. Constructed from coursed, dressed sandstone with ashlar dressings, the castle features a roughly circular curtain wall that includes four square guard towers and a large gatehouse on the east side. The gatehouse originally had an archway beneath four circular turrets, of which two remain. The remaining towers of the gatehouse have offset buttresses and round-headed openings beneath a deep band, with round-headed lights on each floor above. The wall connecting the towers has a tall, rusticated, round-arched doorway with concave reveals, an impost band, and a keystone, along with a second-floor band. The inner tower is incomplete above the fourth storey, while the link wall and outer tower are embattled. The guard towers feature projecting sills to round-headed lights on the ground floor and quatrefoils beneath their embattled parapets. Much of the curtain wall has been reconstructed and includes embattlements. Stainborough Castle is significant as the second Gothick castle in England, following Lord Bathurst's "King Alfred's Hall" in Oakley Wood, Cirencester. It was built on the site of a hill fort and marked the climax of the 1st Earl's garden layout. The towers are said to be named after his four children: Anne, Harriet, Lucy, and William. By 1755, the building was already in disrepair, leading to John Platt of Rotherham being engaged to rebuild part of the gatehouse. The castle is currently undergoing reconstruction.