Danby Castle

Danby Castle

A castle of probably late 14th-century date, now partly in use as a farmhouse and farm buildings, with improvements made in the mid and late 16th century. The structure consists of a small square-plan shell keep with diagonally-projecting corner towers and ranges of buildings around an inner courtyard. The building is partly ruinous and built of coursed tooled sandstone with pantiled and plain tiled roofs.

The south front faces the road. The centre part is the south-east tower, which rises to three storeys with a basement beneath. It has three bays with a corbelled-out chimney breast in the middle, though the chimney itself has been removed. There are flanking small chamfered windows and at the right on the second floor another small chamfered window. At basement level a modern window sits in the centre, with a 2-light stone-mullioned window to the right. In the left bay is a corbelled-out stair turret with one chamfered light.

The three-bay left section is what originally stood between the towers; the south-west tower has been lost. At the left is a stable door, while at the right is a narrow chamfered doorway. On the first floor to the right is a 4-light window with hollow-chamfered mullions (two missing) and modern glazing, set under a hoodmould. To the left are a single light and a 2-light chamfered mullioned window, with a small blocked opening at the far left. The right part is a 19th-century farmhouse extension of two storeys and two bays, with sash windows that have lost their intermediate bars. End chimneys appear here and to the left of the centre section.

On the west side, in place of the lost tower and intermediate wall section, is the farmyard with farm buildings built into the curtain wall. On the north side both towers and the intermediate section survive to at least two-storey height externally, rising above a stepped and chamfered double plinth. There are 1-light openings on both levels.

Behind the farmhouse, the east side has been largely lost, but the south-west tower displays a 3-light double-chamfered mullioned window with Tudor-arched lights. Beyond this is a chimney corbelled out at first-floor level, a 2-centred arched doorway, and a similar arch leading to an external stair. Viewed from within the courtyard, the remains of the castle buildings are of good coursed masonry with various chamfered openings. At first-floor level there is an arcaded passage and a fireplace on the west part of the north section; further east is a shouldered-arched window and a Tudor-arched blocked opening, with a fireplace under a straight lintel at second floor. In the west curtain wall is a fireplace under a flattened Tudor arch.

Farm buildings extend into the courtyard from these ruins: a two-storey barn with a boarded door, and an adjacent one-storey cartshed. A wall with a segmental-arched wagon entrance links the barn to the house, near a tall chimney with offset.

Interior

The 2-centred arch in the south courtyard section leads to a medieval barrel-vaulted undercroft, from which steps rise to a narrow door. A shouldered opening on the first floor opens into a large chamber with a stone-flagged floor above, called the Courtroom, presumably from its past function. It contains an 18th-century corner fireplace, a "judge's bench" of 17th-century panelling, and a ceiling replaced possibly around 1700. Leading from the Courtroom is another large room with a 17th-century door, two walls of 17th-century panelling, and another corner fireplace. Between these rooms a newel stair leads to an upper chamber that is unheated, though a chimney shaft passes through it, and it retains old windows partly blocked. The roof, consisting of fairly light-weight collar-and-tie-beam trusses, is probably late 18th century in date.

The castle is said to have been the house of Catherine Parr, the surviving wife of Henry VIII.