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Derbyshire
THE REBUILDING OF BOLSOVER CASTLE
Sir Charles Cavendish probably began to build a mansion on the site of the medieval castle at
Bolsover shortly after he took a long lease of the manor in 1608. Accounts for 1612–14 and
the survival of a fireplace dated 1616 show that before his death in 1617 Cavendish had
demolished whatever remained of the keep and begun to build the `Little Castle' on the same
site, at the western end of the inner bailey overlooking the valley below. Consisting of a
basement and three floors above, with access from the top floor to the lead-covered roof, on
which there was an octagonal cupola, the Little Castle was given the appearance of a
medieval keep, with turrets at three of the corners and a larger staircase tower at the fourth. It
was battlemented throughout, although a number of square-headed mullioned and transomed
windows were let into the walls. The building may have been designed by Robert Smythson,
who died in 1614, or by his son John, or it may be the work of both men.
Charles Cavendish died in 1617 and it was left to his son William to complete the Little
Castle. He introduced one or two novelties, notably two balconies on the entrance and garden
fronts, but otherwise remained loyal to the Smythsons' design, finishing the interior to a
strikingly high standard.
Sir Charles probably thought of the Little Castle as no more than an occasional residence,
since it provided limited accommodation and lay only a few miles from the family's main seat
at Welbeck. But from about 1629 until the outbreak of the Civil War his son, by this date earl
of Newcastle, greatly extended Bolsover. He began in 1629–30 by building an additional
wing and terrace immediately to the south of the Little Castle, possibly to accommodate
servants and visitors. Then, in the early 1630s, Newcastle encased the surviving remains of
the wall enclosing the inner bailey to create a high-level walkway around a garden, the focal
point of which was a fountain. Small rooms let into the walkway are probably on the site of
medieval towers. At the same time the range to the west of the Little Castle was greatly
extended to create a long gallery.
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June 2007
Some of this work may have been done in 1633–4, between a visit by Charles I to Welbeck en
route to Scotland in 1633 and his return the following year, when the king and queen went
over to Bolsover for the day. There they were given a banquet and a masque was performed,
for which the royal party `retired into a garden'. The banquet may have been served in the
gallery and the masque performed in the Fountain Garden, with the audience seated on the
walkway above. The focal point of the masque was a `dance of mechanics', with a surveyor,
mason and other workmen, perhaps an allusion to work still in progress at the castle.
John Smythson died in 1634 and between then and the outbreak of the Civil War further work
was done at Bolsover, with the building of a great hall on the inner side of the gallery, looking
onto the great courtyard (i.e. the medieval outer bailey). This appears to have been part of a
larger scheme, the rest of which was not executed: had it been completed the gallery and hall
range would have become the main residential block of the mansion, leaving the Little Castle
as no more than a garden pavilion. The work may have been designed by John Smythson but
was probably finished by his son Huntingdon, who died in 1648, several years after the Civil
War and Newcastle's exile on the Continent had put an end to building at Bolsover.
After the Restoration further additions were made to the terrace range, with the building of
apartments on the courtyard side of the gallery, south of the hall, to a different and grander
plan than that proposed by John Smythson. At the southern end of this range stood a small
group of private rooms which formed a link between the gallery and a large riding school,
aligned from south-west to north-east across the south-eastern side of the great courtyard,
which was the biggest of the post-Restorations additions to Bolsover. All these buildings
appear to have been executed between 1667 and 1674, when Newcastle began work on
Nottingham Castle. Minor work of the same period included a new bridge linking the
northern end of the terrace range to the fountain garden wall, stairs leading down from the
gallery to the terrace, new gatepiers at the entrance to the great courtyard, and a new gateway
leading from the courtyard into the fountain garden, which is clearly aligned on the entrance
to the riding school.
Despite the large-scale projects carried out at Bolsover both before and after the Civil War,
the mansion never replaced Welbeck as the main seat of the Cavendish family and in the 18th
and 19th centuries much of the interior of the keep was dismantled and the roof removed from
the gallery. Some of the rooms in the Little Castle were fitted up to accommodate two
nineteenth-century vicars of Bolsover, W.C. Tinsley (1818–33) and J.H. Gray (1834–67).
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In the early 20th century the public were admitted to the ruins; an attendant lived in a portion
of the riding school, from whom a guidebook, written by the duke of Portland's librarian,
could be obtained. In 1945 Portland presented the castle to the Office of Works and today it
remains in the guardianship of the department's successor, English Heritage. In the 1950s the
urban district council floodlit the castle during a six-week period of illuminations in the town
each summer. During the 1990s English Heritage carried out an extensive programme of
restoration at the castle, including the building of a visitor centre at the entrance to the outer
courtyard, and sought to market the monument more actively than before.
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June 2007