Starkey Castle

Starkey Castle is a manor house, possibly formerly a hospice, dating to around 1360-1380, with significant alterations in the 15th century and the early 19th century. It is constructed of random rubble with dressed stone quoins and dressings, with some galletting. The roof is tiled, featuring a coped parapeted gabled cross-wing to the left and a tall stone stack at the entrance. The building originally comprised a hall-house plan with services to the left and a solar wing to the right, the latter of which was likely demolished in the 17th century.

The original hall was floored in the 16th and 17th centuries, and a two-story cross-wing extends to the left, with further two-story out-blocks behind and to the left. A wide pointed-arched three-light traceried window is on the cross-wing’s first floor, positioned above a square-headed, early 19th-century Tudor-style window on the ground floor. To the right of the centre of the building is a two-story pointed-arched dais window with an early 19th-century wood and stone mullion and tracery in a moulded surround with a drip-mould. Square-headed windows with drip-moulds and two-light Tudor-style glazing are found on the ground and first floors to the right of the centre. A doorway is located to the left of the centre, framed by a moulded pointed-arched surround with a drip-mould, leading to double doors with a 'Gothick'-glazed archlight.

The south front features a projecting chimney-breast against the side of the cross-wing, and an L-shaped block with a hipped roof projects to the left. Round-arched windows on two floors are present on the main block to the left of the chimney-breast and in the angle of the ‘L’. The west front has a projecting wing to the right and a main block to the left, incorporating a gabled cross-wing to the right of the centre. A hipped-roof stair-tower is situated at the left of the cross-wing, containing a pointed-arched moulded entrance and double doors. Irregular fenestration is characteristic, featuring a mix of square- and round-headed windows, primarily from the 14th century, with one late 15th century two-light window retaining its original stone mullion above to the left. The north front is rendered, with two asymmetrically placed corbels on the ground-floor and 16th and 17th century red-brick infill to the gable end.

The interior includes a double-height, two-bay open hall with an arch-braced rafter roof, featuring braces, trusses, and ashlars resting on moulded cornices and arched braces resting on corbels decorated with winged angels in the centre and shields at each end. Remnants of an inserted stack and walls are visible within the hall. Sections of a screen's passage survive, along with doorways to the buttery, pantry, and staircase. A large room, formerly a chapel, is found on the upper floor of the cross-wing, and is accessible via a stone spiral staircase at the southwest end of the hall. The chapel roof exhibits molded side-purlins and arched braces supported by shield-moulded corbels. A late 15th-century stone roll-moulded fireplace is present in the chapel. Starkey Castle is designated as a Grade I listed building, recognized as one of the most complete surviving stone-built medieval hall-houses in Southern England.