Listed Building record MDO17502 - Lulworth Castle, East Lulworth

A four square building of three storeys with four storey towers at the corners all rising above a basement which is partly masked by a wide terrace forming a podium, itself containing basement rooms. It is brick faced with Purbeck and Portland stone rubble and ashlar. Construction was begun c.1590 by Henry Howard, 2nd Viscount Bindon, or his brother Thomas. It later passed to their cousin the Earl of Suffolk and then in 1641 was purchased by the Weld Family who during the 1700's remodelled the castle both inside and out. In 1929 fire gutted the inside of the castle and has not been restored. It is an entirely military looking structure without military intent. The solid rectangular block with corner towers is unusual when compared to the more open E and H shaped designs often adopted during the time of construction for houses.

A history of the castle published in 1926 before the fire, with numerous illustrations of the interior and exterior of the building, also a reproduction of a view of the layout of the house and surrouunding grounds in 1721. <1>

A shorter retrospective in Country Life of September 7th 1929, prompted by the fire which had occurred a few weeks prior to publication. It notes some of the elements that were lost such as the ballroom ceiling. <2>

A study of Tudor and Stuart hunting lodges from Country Life noting Lulworth Castle as an example. <3>

Lulworth Castle of brick, faced with stone rubble and ashlar comprises a four-square building of three-storeys with four-storey towers rising above a basement which is partly masked by a terrace. Construction was begun circa 1590 by Henry Howard, 2nd Viscount Bindon - though new information suggests circa 1608-and the exterior at least was completed by 1609; the interior of the castle was still unfinished in 1641. There was extensive remodelling in the mid 18th century with further alterations in the 19th century (see plan). Lulworth Castle is a military-looking structure wholly without military intent, and
is of special interest. The castle was completely gutted by fire in 1929 and has not been restored. <5>

SY 853822. Lulworth Castle. Scheduled. <7>

Lulworth Castle is at present being consolidated and restoration of the western side has commenced. Resurveyed at 1:2500 on M.S.D. from R.C.H.M. plan (2). <8>

A hunting lodge, later converted to a residence, built circa 1608 for Henry Howard, Lord Bindon and remodelled twice during the 17th century; first for Thomas Lord Suffolk between 1609-11, and again in 1641 for Humphrey Weld. Further alteration work was undertaken at some point during the 18th century by Bastard Bros. of Blandford, and in the 1780s by John Tasker. The building was gutted by fire in 1929. A restoration programme was carried out in 1993. The main front is of ashlar, with rubble stone elsewhere. It is square in plan, of 3 storeys and basement, with 4-storeyed circular corner towers, and is pseudo-military in style. The main entrance is on the east front, with a raised terrace, steps and balustrade. There is a simpler entrance on the west front. The Grade was altered from II* to I in 1998. <9>

Lulworth Castle. A former hunting lodge converted into a residence, built circa 1608 for Henry Howard, Lord Bindon. The building was gutted by fire in 1929. A restoration programme was carried out in 1993. The castle is in the care of English Heritage. The castle was recorded during the Wild Purbeck Mapping Project <10-11>.

Criswick, 1820, A walk round Dorchester (Monograph). SDO21320.

<1> 1926, Lulworth Castle, Dorset: the residence of Mr Herbert Weld. Country Life 59, 52-60 (Article in serial). SDO20483.

<2> 1929, Lulworth Castle. Country Life 66, 330 (Article in serial). SDO20484.

<3> Girouard, M, 1963, Arcadian retreats for the chase: Tudor and Stuart hunting lodges. Country Life 134, 737-8 (Article in serial). SDO20485.

<4> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1963 (Map). SWX1540.

(SY 85348218) Lulworth Castle (NR) (remains of) (NAT)

<5> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 1, 146 (Monograph). SDO148.

'(3) LULWORTH CASTLE (Plates 101–3), of brick faced with Purbeck and Portland stone rubble and ashlar, comprises a four-square building of three storeys with four-storey towers at the corners all rising above a basement which is partly masked by a wide terrace forming a podium, itself containing basement rooms. It was begun c. 1590 by Henry Howard, 2nd Viscount Bindon, or his brother Thomas (P.S. new information suggests c. 1608, see p. lviii, footnote). From the latter it passed to his cousin, Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk. The exterior at least was virtually complete by 1609, but Coker's statement (Survey of Dorsetshire (1732), 43) that it was built with materials from Mount Poynings is unlikely; Mount Poynings, in West Lulworth (see Lulworth, W., 34), was built by Thomas, Lord Poynings, who married Henry Howard's aunt; it was subsequently held by the heirs and successors of Lord Poynings until it was acquired by the Earl of Suffolk after 1609 and reunited with the Lulworth Castle property. The interior of the castle was still unfinished when it was bought by Humphrey Weld in 1641. (Hutchins I, 370, 374.)
The architectural treatment of the building is severe and decoration is limited mainly to a small-scale triumphal-arch motif, and even this is an addition of c. 1700. The decoration of the arch includes a shield-of-arms of Weld impaling Stanley commemorating a marriage of 1772, but the whole motif is shown in a drawing of the castle with formal gardens surrounding it which was executed by Margaret Weld in 1721 and is reproduced in Country Life LIX (1926), 54. It also appears, more clearly, in a Buck engraving of 1733. The doorway in the middle of the W. elevation is also an addition of c. 1700. The terrace, which was originally confined to the E. front, was extended round the N. and S. sides by 1765.
Remodelling of the interior began under Edward Weld in the middle of the 18th century: account books show payments to the Bastards of Blandford in 1740–1756 for decoration, furniture and chimneypieces. Further work was carried out for Edward Weld, junior, and Thomas Weld, senior, later in the century: Thomas Bastard, junior, in 1770 was paid £153 14s. 7½d. (bill in D.C.R.O.) for work including repairs, redecoration and provision of sash windows, and in 1787 payments were made for paving, a staircase, and chimneypieces (Building Account Book of Thomas Weld). Two drawings endorsed 'Paine's plans for Lulworth Castle' and 'designed 1773' survive but cannot be related to any work known to have been carried out. About the same time the formal gardens which had surrounded the castle were swept away and the park was laid out, enclosed by a new brick wall. This also involved the destruction of part of the village (see Monument 27). The castle was completely gutted by fire in 1929 and has not been restored. For photographs of the interior before the fire see Country Life LIX, 55–9.
Lulworth castle is of special interest. It is a military-looking structure wholly without military intent; symbolic and associative notions alone, it would seem, dictated the design. The building forms a solid rectangular block with corner towers in contrast to the open E and H-shaped planning more often adopted for contemporary houses. The prototype may be the late 15th-century Wickham Court, Kent, though this has octagonal towers and a small central courtyard, or Mount Edgcumbe in Cornwall of 1546, which has round towers and a hall in the centre rising above the surrounding roofs to receive clearstorey lighting. Lulworth castle has a central tower-like feature, but only large enough to contain flues and a staircase. Comparison may be drawn also with Sherborne new castle built after 1592 (R.C.H.M., Dorset I, Castleton (5)) and Bolsover castle designed by John Smythson of 1612–21, both with angular corner turrets, and with plans drawn by John Thorpe (cf. T190 with round towers and T191, 192 with square towers). At Longford castle in Wiltshire, built in 1578–9, something of the same allusive pageantry emerges, but here the original plan is triangular, enclosing an open triangular courtyard, and the round towers on the salient corners flank façades of greater elaboration than those at Lulworth; the military character too is less pronounced.
The windows of Lulworth castle are similar to those at Wardour old castle inserted by Robert Smythson in 1576–8 and equally archaic, and the E. rose-window is much akin to his designs. Indeed Lulworth has many stylistic affinities with Smythson's work, but there is no evidence that he was connected with it. (See M. Girouard, Robert Smythson and the Architecture of the Elizabethan Era (1966); Sir John Summerson, 'The Book of Architecture of John Thorpe' in Walpole Soc. Vol. XL (1966).)
Architectural Description—The castle is square with a circular tower at each corner and the centre carried up above the general roof level to form a small embattled rectangular tower with chimneys in the corner turrets. The site slopes down to the E. and on this lower side is a terrace, which returns along the N. and S. sides to meet the higher ground to the W. The E. elevation is of ashlar, the others are rubble-faced with brick backing. The storeys are marked by string-courses and the parapets are embattled. On the W. side the lowest string-course is carried across the re-entrant angles in projecting curves making small platforms for rain-water cisterns.
The windows generally are of two four-centred arched lights in a square head; two on the ground floor have human masks below and most of those to the upper floors have lions' heads below or flanking them. Ranging with the first-floor windows on the E. front are shell-headed niches containing 18th-century lead statues of the four Cardinal Virtues (Plate 103) (now removed). The windows on the ground floor show a change in design: some occupy the full height between the string-courses defining the ground floor, and some have sills at a higher level. The change seems to have been decided upon when the N.W. tower was being built; here the windows have the tall jambs but the sills have been raised and the windows reduced in height.
On the E. front (Plate 103) is a round-arched entrance doorway, with a keystone carved with the arms of Weld, set in a composition suggesting a triumphal arch. To each side is a projecting pier with paired engaged Ionic columns on the front flanking a shell-headed niche and a cartouche carved subsequently with the arms of Weld (one quartering, the other impaling Stanley, for Thomas Weld, married 1772, died 1816); the crowning entablature returns forward over the piers to form pedestals for two stone statues of Roman emperors. The whole composition is an embellishment of c. 1700. In the castle wall between the statues is an original round window of seven round lights. Smaller round windows to each side are later insertions, probably of the 19th century.
On the W. elevation the middle of the ground floor originally had two two-light windows; one light of each window was lost when a new central doorway was formed c. 1700. The latter has a semicircular head with the arms of Weld carved on the keystone and is flanked by rusticated Tuscan columns carrying an entablature, over which there was formerly a bust.
The windows to the basement, which is mainly above the ground, are each of two square-headed lights, but the terrace covers the lower parts of some of them; ranging with the E. basement windows are wall-niches with shell heads.
The terrace follows the plan of the castle; it is enclosed by a stone balustrade and in the wall below are elliptical-headed doorways and windows, one of which has a keystone dated 1776. On the E. side, the terrace is carried on brick vaulting.
The interior of the castle has been gutted and it is now evident that many of the walls had been partly rebuilt in brick in the 18th century and that further alterations were carried out in the 19th century. The former Great Hall has at the N.W. corner an opening to the stairhall which is formed by a reused 15th-century stone archway with moulded jambs and a four-centred head. At the E. end are two round-arched openings with panelled jambs and soffits and with circular recesses above. The fireplace has a moulded stone surround of the 18th century set in the blocking of a larger opening which has a relieving arch over it.
The basement rooms are, or were, covered by ribbed stone vaults springing from columns with plain or enriched capitals. Some of the rooms have doorways with four-centred stone heads, and in the central room to the N. is a big open fireplace with a segmental-arched head. An external doorway is fitted with an early 17th-century door with carved enrichment to every part; it has two round-headed panels, with raised centres each decorated with a lily-pot, flanked by Ionic pilasters, an architrave with consoles over the pilasters and containing a small opening covered by an iron grille, a moulded frieze and a gadrooned and moulded semicircular head.
bStable Building, to S.E., enclosing a square courtyard, is of one storey and attics and has walls mainly of brick and tiled roofs; the building is dated 1777, but the outer walls of the S. and W. ranges are of older stone rubble and contain the remains of 17th-century windows. The building was remodelled in c. 1900 with timber-framed gables and dormers. The entrance is through the N. range by an archway with three-centred head. The E. range has in the W. wall an arcade of seven three-centred archways to coach-houses. The stable has now been converted into a gallery for the display of the Ince Blundell Hall collection of paintings and drawings.
aNorth Lodges (848833), in Coombe Keynes parish but described here with the castle, comprises two lodges of two storeys flanking a main gateway with piers and two narrow side gateways in arched openings, all ashlar faced (Plate 101). The gate-piers contain round-headed niches and oval panels framing, on the S., the date (of building) 1785, and on the N. two shields-of-arms, of Weld quartering Sherborne, Heveningham, Simeon, and of Weld impaling Stanley; couched lions crown the piers. The short connecting walls between the piers and the lodges contain segmental-headed archways with plain imposts and keystones. The lodges are triangular on plan with rounded turrets at the corners; the fronts have a moulded string carried round at first-floor level and embattled parapets. The entrance-doorways are on the N. and have moulded four-centred heads; the windows in the flat wall-faces are of two lights with elliptical openings in square moulded heads, and the turrets contain loop lights, trefoiled at head and foot. The two lead rain-water pipes are original.
The park walls are of carstone rubble patched with brick, from 5 ft. to 10 ft. high and with embattled parapets. They continue straight E. and W. from the lodges a distance of 13 yds. to round towers of similar build, 6 ft. in diameter and some 15 ft. high, then curve in a quarter circle to two more similar towers; a third tower on each side stands 60 yds. away.
aClare Towers (842830), in Coombe Keynes parish but described here with the castle, is a gateway built of carstone rubble and brick, and is probably contemporary with the park wall, of the late 18th century. It consists of an entrance archway, two-centred and of three brick orders with a leopard's mask carved in stone above, flanked by round towers, 6½ ft. in diameter internally, entered through doorways with two-centred brick openings and lit by plain loops. The towers are roofless and the brick parapets and upper parts of the walls are ruinous.
bWareham Gate Lodge (857828), of rubble partly stuccoed and with brick string-courses (Plate 58), is of the 17th century but was moved to its present position in 1808, this date appearing on a date-stone on the building. On a drawing of it dated 1806 in Thomas Weld's notebooks is written 'Design for introducing the Old Lodge which stood in front of the Castle till the year 1753', and it is shown giving access to a formal garden E. of the castle in Margaret Weld's drawing of 1721 referred to above.
It is a rectangular two-storey building with an embattled parapet and with a round-arched carriageway through the middle of the lower storey; the windows are divided into three and four elliptical-headed lights by timber mullions.'

<6> Newman, J, and Pevsner, N, 1972, The Buildings of England: Dorset, 194-5 (Monograph). SWX1290.

<7> Department of the Environment, 1978, Department of the Environment (IAM) Ancient Monuments of England (Vol 2), 82 (Monograph). SWX1687.

<8> Barton, J G, Various, Field Investigators Comments JGB, F1 JGB 06-JUL-81 (Unpublished document). SDO11900.

<9> English Heritage, Scheduling Amendment, 5-MAR-1998 (Scheduling record). SDO17245.

<10> Royal Air Force, 04-NOV-1946, RAF/CPE/UK/1824 4242-3 (Aerial Photograph). SDO13697.

<11> National Monuments Record, 11-JUL-2003, NMR 23145/06-14 (SY8582-12-20) (Aerial Photograph). SDO13698.

<12> Historic England, Historic England Archive (Index). SDO14738.

Object Number
Object Title
Scope And Content
2K/07824 LULWORTH CASTLE
BF106206 LULWORTH CASTLE, LULWORTH PARK, EAST LULWORTH
BF110930 England's Landscapes
FL00881 Lulworth Castle, East Lulworth, Dorset
This material has not yet been fully catalogued. Copyright, date, and quantity information for this record may be incomplete or inaccurate.
OS52/F71/6 SOUTH FRONT OF LULWORTH CASTLE.
OS52/F71/7 NORTH FRONT OF LULWORTH CASTLE.
OS52/F71/8 INTERIOR EAST WALL SHAVING HUCK STONE AND CHALK CONSTRUCTION.
PF/LUC Lulworth Castle, Dorset. 1457 drawings, dating from between the nineteenth century and 2000, with most dating from the 1980s and 1990s. The majority of the drawings relate to proposed consolidation, access and presentation work undertaken under the custodianship of the Department of the Environment and English Heritage from the 1970s, with a number of sheets concerned with window repairs and reconstruction of the walls and central tower. Many sheets also appear in annotated or revised copies as work on the castle's reconstruction progressed.There are surveys and topographic surveys of the estate made between 1985 and 1987. Dating from 1986 to 1987 are proposals for works to the castle, grounds and estate office to the south-east (formerly the stable block to the castle), including planting, a new car-park and a visitor centre.There are some sketch elevations, outline plans and sheets relating to conjectural reconstruction of the castle's historic layout. There are several photogrammetric surveys of the castle, dating from 1978 to 1992. Other sets of drawings show guttering and drainage, electrical services, landscaping proposals (notably for the Rose Garden), or relate to relocation of the memorial gate and works compounds and the layout of estate roads. Some drawings were prepared as part of a tendering submission by main contractor Gilmore Hankey Kirke Ltd, who also produced a spiral-bound booklet of copies of plans and elevations entitled 'Visual index of architectural drawings used in the consolidation, repair and restoration of Lulworth Castle, 1982-1997', which is also included.

<13> National Record of the Historic Environment, 455400 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Feb 19 2025 12:11PM