Qualla: Bolsover Castle

Bolsover Castle: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit John Sutton, CC BY-SA 2.0. Walk into the Little Castle at Bolsover and you understand immediately that this place was never meant to withstand a siege. The rooms are intimate, richly decorated, filled with painted allegories and elaborate stonework. A Venus Fountain plays in the courtyard. The fireplaces are ornamental fantasies. This is a castle built for pleasure -- a Jacobean gentleman's retreat disguised in medieval clothing, perched on a Derbyshire hilltop where a genuine Norman fortress once stood. That the building which replaced it was designed not for war but for art, conversation, and spectacle tells you something about the ambitions of the family who built it, and about a particular moment in English history when the aristocracy began to imagine that the age of castles might be over.

Read more: Bolsover Castle on Qualla

Image: John Sutton | CC BY-SA 2.0

Bolsover Castle: From Medieval Ruin to Jacobean Fantasy

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Amanda Slater from Coventry, West Midlands, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. The original Bolsover Castle was authentically military. Henry II spent 116 pounds fortifying it during the revolt of his own sons in the 1170s, when the garrison was increased to a force led by twenty knights shared between Bolsover, Peveril, and Nottingham. Over the following c...

Read more: Bolsover Castle on Qualla

Image: Amanda Slater from Coventry, West Midlands, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

Bolsover Castle: The Castle That Was Not a Castle

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Amanda Slater from Coventry, West Midlands, UK, CC BY-SA 2.0. After the 7th Earl of Shrewsbury sold the ruins, his step-brother Sir Charles Cavendish bought them with a singular vision: to build a new structure on the old foundations that would be, in every way, a place for living rather than fighting. Working with the celebrated architect ...

Read more: Bolsover Castle on Qualla

Image: Amanda Slater from Coventry, West Midlands, UK | CC BY-SA 2.0

Bolsover Castle: Slighted, Restored, and Haunted

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jon Bennett, CC BY 2.0. The English Civil War interrupted everything. Parliamentarian forces captured Bolsover and slighted it -- deliberately damaging the structure to prevent future military use. William Cavendish, who had been created Marquess of Newcastle in 1643, eventually added a new hall and sta...

Read more: Bolsover Castle on Qualla

Image: Jon Bennett | CC BY 2.0