- Heritage

Casa Guidi

The suite of rooms on the first floor of the palazzo Guidi was, for many years, the home of poets Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. They lived here from 1847 until 1861 and in these rooms they wrote some of their finest poetry. “Casa Guidi” was the name given to the apartment by Elizabeth Browning herself. The palazzo Guidi, at the southern end of Via Maggio, dates from the fifteenth century…

Castle Bungalow

Castle Bungalow reflects a more recent strand in Peppercombe’s history. Since the early 19th century, there has been a growing appreciation of it as a place to be valued for the beauty of its scenery. To begin with, this went hand in hand with more obviously productive uses, but as these died out for one reason or another, it became the predominant one, and remains so today…

Castle Cottage

In 1894, the Post Office had a granite hut built against the north wall of the Castle Keep to house the terminal of the new submarine-telegraph cable from Croyde. The telephone instrument was in one the two Signal Cottages behind the castle, where a record of calls was kept for the islanders’ bills. The cable hut had one room and a small lobby, and was enclosed by a retaining wall. The point of entry for the cable can be seen low down on the hut’s west wall…

Castle Keep East

Marisco Castle is a misnomer. The castle was built by Henry III in 1243 after the downfall of his rebellious island subjects, the de Marisco family. In that year the Sheriff of Devon gave instructions that the new Governor of the island should build a tower and a bailey wall. These were to be financed from the sale of rabbits, for Lundy was a Royal Warren…

Castle Keep North

Marisco Castle is a misnomer. The castle was built by Henry III in 1243 after the downfall of his rebellious island subjects, the de Marisco family. In that year the Sheriff of Devon gave instructions that the new Governor of the island should build a tower and a bailey wall. These were to be financed from the sale of rabbits, for Lundy was a Royal Warren…

Castle of Park

The inscription over the door tells us that work began on the Castle of Park on the first day of March, 1590 (in time for a good long season’s work before the next winter); and that Thomas Hay of Park and his wife Janet MacDowel were responsible for it. Thomas had been given the Park of Glenluce, land formerly belonging to Glenluce Abbey, by his father in 1572, and it is said that he took stone from the Abbey buildings for his own new house…

Causeway House

Causeway House lies in the Northumberland National Park at the side of the road leading down to the Roman Fort of Vindolanda. It is a rare surviving example of a building thatched with heather, a feature once fairly common in upland areas and is now the only one left in Northumberland…

Cavendish Hall

Listed Grade II, Cavendish Hall remains an excellent example of a Regency country house. According to White’s Directory of 1844, it is said to have been built by Thomas Halifax, once Mayor of Chester, for one of his sons. The coat of arms in the stained glass window does indeed show arms granted to a John Hallifax of Kenilworth in 1788, making a Hal(l)ifax connection plausible. According to the date on the window, and if the stained glass window in the cloakroom is in its primary position, the house was completed by 1802…

Cawood Castle

This Gatehouse, with a domestic wing to one side of it, is all that remains of Cawood Castle, the principal palace of the Archbishops of York from the 13th century, 200 years before the Gatehouse was built, until 1646 when the castle’s destruction was ordered by Parliament during the Civil War. The flat landscape seems an unlikely site for a fortified building, but this was an important cross-roads with a ferry over the Ouse on the road to York and a road running east-west along the riverbank…

Cawsey House, South Street

This fine merchant’s house, with its elaborately decorated shell hood over the door, appears in nearly every book on Great Torrington and most books on the buildings of Devon. It served as offices or a club from the 19th century, but it was once a private house, and one that its builder could be proud of…