Qualla: Sherborne Castle

Sherborne Castle: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit mwanasimba from La Réunion, CC BY-SA 2.0. Walter Raleigh was on his way to Plymouth when he first saw Sherborne. The medieval castle on its hill, the green Dorset countryside rolling away in every direction -- he wanted it immediately. Queen Elizabeth leased him the estate in 1592, and Raleigh, rather than renovate the twelfth-century fortress, built himself something new: a four-storey brick lodge in the park, a place the antiquary John Aubrey later described as "a delicate Lodge... not big, but very convenient for its bignes, a place to retire from the Court in summer time, and to contemplate."

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Image: mwanasimba from La Réunion | CC BY-SA 2.0

Sherborne Castle: The Bishop's Fortress

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jim Champion, CC BY-SA 2.0. The story of Sherborne begins centuries before Raleigh. The building now known as Sherborne Old Castle was constructed in the twelfth century as the fortified palace of Roger de Caen, Bishop of Salisbury and Chancellor of England. During the Anarchy of the 1140s, when Stephen and...

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Image: Jim Champion | CC BY-SA 2.0

Sherborne Castle: Raleigh's Lodge and Its Loss

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Pengannel, CC BY 2.0. Raleigh completed his lodge in 1594. It was an unusual building for its time, with four polygonal corner turrets that gestured toward military defence without actually providing any, a nod to the medieval castle visible across the park. The entrance was cleverly disguised in one ...

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Image: Pengannel | CC BY 2.0

Sherborne Castle: Civil War and Destruction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Simon Palmer, CC BY-SA 2.0. The English Civil War tore Sherborne apart, literally. Lord Digby was a Royalist advisor to Charles I, and the area was strongly Royalist. The fortified old castle changed hands twice: captured by Parliamentarians in September 1642, recaptured by Royalists in February 1643. In Au...

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Image: Simon Palmer | CC BY-SA 2.0

Sherborne Castle: Landscape and Legacy

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathan Billinger, CC BY-SA 2.0. In the eighteenth century, the Digby heirs turned destruction into design. The 5th Lord Digby laid out grounds that Alexander Pope praised, and in 1753 Capability Brown created the lake that now separates the ruined old castle from the lived-in new one. The ruins became a deliber...

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Image: Jonathan Billinger | CC BY-SA 2.0