Alnwick Castle Virtual Tour 2020

Hello and welcome to this brand new virtual tour of Annick Castle. I'm Daniel Watkins and I will be exploring the castle grounds and the staterooms with you, giving you the opportunity to hear the history of each location as well as some fun facts you may not have known. The Barbican, the entrance to the medieval castle and its strongest defence against enemy attack. While we don't know exactly when construction began on the Barbican, we do know that it was completed in 1475 when the badge of Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland, was placed above its outer gateway. It has been the castle's most famous military feature ever since. The 4th Earl had been imprisoned after his father's death in battle in 1461 and was only released when he swore allegiance to King Edward IV. It took several more years before the The badge on the Barbican, of a sculpted Percy lion, also displays the 4th Earl's initials, HP. However, the badge seen today is an 18th century replica. Instead of HP, the original said HM, which stood for Henry and his wife, Maud. The Barbican itself extends at least 18 metres beyond the castle walls and was filled with obstacles to make sure attackers never got past it. There would have been heavy wooden outer doors to break through before entering a long open passageway with battlements 9 metres above providing defending soldiers with easy targets for firing arrows or pouring down boiling water, urine or hot sand which could get between even the smallest gaps in attacker's armour. After that, there was a pair of ditches with a drawbridge covering both, as well as a portcullis, a wooden grill reinforced with iron to create an additional barrier. The drawbridge worked on a pivot at its central point. When it was lowered to cover the first ditch, another section of it rose behind the portcullis to cover the second. By the 1500s, the ditches had been filled in and remained that way until the early 20th century when the 7th Duke of Northumberland, a keen local historian, excavated one, finding evidence of the original mechanisms. If enemies got past this, there were two guard chambers on either side of the passageway fitted so defenders could fire arrows into the side of an attacking force. Then there were the huge oak gates of the gatehouse and then there was every other part of the castle to capture before they could successfully conquer it. The Barbican was never taken by force. The first Duke and Duchess, Hugh and Elizabeth, first visited Annick Castle in 1750 and soon made the decision to restore it, inside and out. Elizabeth had the passion for her Percy family history and Hugh had the vision to make the transformation happen. They turned an unused medieval fortress into a spectacular residence with beautiful parklands surrounding it. As part of this restoration, they enlisted the gardener from their Yorkshire home, Thomas Call, and the landscape architect and designer who had already worked with Hugh on Cyan House near London, Capability Brown. Brown was born in Northumberland in 1716 and has since become known as England's greatest gardener, designing over 170 park landscapes across England in his lifetime. By 1769, he had made a plan for the landscape opposite Annick Castle. Work soon began and the following year, Brown and his wife dined with the Duke and Duchess at the castle. Thomas Call planted thousands of trees across the parkland, while Brown's team of around 60 men, led by his foreman Cornelius Griffin, worked on landscaping the area north of the castle, often known today as the Pastures. Among other things, they smoothed the slopes of the land leading down to the River Allen, adding trees and grass, replaced bridges and altered roads, and gave visual boundaries to the Duke and Duchess's land by planting perimeters called shelter belts. Work also took place on the river itself. Brown's team removed boulders and islands as famous canal builder James Brindley worked on widening it and adding a series of cascades to slow its flow as it passed the castle. The aim was for the castle to be reflected in the Unfortunately, in late 1771, a huge flood swept away all the work completed on the river to that point. The cascades were soon rebuilt and were joined in 1773 by a new bridge that crossed the river near Annick Castle. It features a Percy lion and has been known as the Lion Bridge ever since. The building of the Gun Terrace around the same time gave Hugh and Elizabeth a perfect vantage point to admire their new parkland. Elizabeth took carriage rides through the parks each summer, designing over 90 different routes to her favourite spots and listing them all in her notebooks and diaries. The Inner Bailey, an area of the castle which contained buildings and towers Both the Poston and Constable's Towers, which today contain museums, were built by the First Lord Percy of Annick in the years after his purchase of the castle in 1309. A poston, also called a sally port, was a secondary gateway found in a castle wall used to launch surprise attacks or conduct a secret evacuation. The sally port on the basement level of the Poston Tower was used in this way, and we'll talk about that more in the next video. The castle museum was opened in this tower in the 1820s during the time of Hugh Percy, 3rd Duke of Northumberland. Nearly 200 years later, it still displays archaeological finds collected by generations of the Percys, including Roman, Celtic and ancient British artefacts. The Constable's Tower was probably named for the Constable, a senior figure in the Percy family household who may have lived on the tower's middle level. One of the most famous constables in Annick Castle's history was Thomas Percy, a cousin of the 9th Earl of Northumberland. His fame comes from being a main conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot, which aimed to blow up the King and Parliament. When Guy Fawkes was discovered with the gunpowder on 5th November 1605, Thomas fled but was shot and killed. His cousin the Earl was put on trial and spent over 15 years as a prisoner in the Tower of London as a result of the plot. By the end of the 18th century, the Constable's Tower became an armoury for the Percy Tenantry Volunteers, whose story is told on the top floor of the tower today. We'll talk more about the PTV in a future instalment. Between these two towers in the medieval period were a brew house for making drinks and a bakehouse with two ovens for baking bread. The blackened sections of wall between the towers could be evidence of the chimneys for these buildings. On the other side of the Constable's Tower is a stone bench called Hotspur's Seat, named by the First Duchess of Northumberland after her famous warrior ancestor Harry Hotspur. However, because it wasn't built until centuries after his death in battle, Hotspur himself never sat there. At ground level near Hotspur's Seat is the site of the Chapel, one of the castle's most significant buildings from the mid-14th century until the 16th. Parts of the chapel survived into the 18th century, but were removed during the First Duke and Duchess's restoration. Today the chapel is attached to the staterooms. The way to the staterooms is through the archway under the inner gatehouse, also called the Octagonal Towers. These too date to the mid-14th century and are decorated with 13 shields of notable medieval families topped with eight stone figures. The ground floor of the left-hand tower contained a guard room. We'll be heading to a part of Annick Castle where nobody wanted to end up, the dungeon. This area, the ground floor of the right-hand octagonal tower, is known to have been the main prison for the castle in the 16th century. The dungeon itself, an underground cell where prisoners could be lowered through an open grate in its ceiling and confined underneath the tower, is known as an oubliette. The word oubliette comes from the French word oublier, meaning to forget. We can assume anyone imprisoned in an oubliette would be forgotten about. The name dungeon or donjon originally referred to a castle's central keep or main tower, but eventually came to mean the prison below it. Because of their narrow entrance at the top, opening out to a slightly larger space underneath, oubliettes were often shaped a little like a and so have also come to be known as bottle dungeons. Annick Castle was a little over three metres deep. The floor space at the bottom was 2.7 metres by 2.4 metres, but the opening at the top of the bottle is only 60 centimetres square. There do not appear to be records of any individuals who were kept in this dungeon, but letters written by Henry Percy, 6th Earl of Northumberland to King Henry VIII, mention a large number of prisoners confined in the castle dungeons following raids and atrocities by fighters on the English-Scottish border. The dungeon seems to have been used as late as the 1590s when Thomas Percy, the constable mentioned in the last video, would throw people into prison to try and extort money from them. Other cellars and underground chambers within the castle, such as one beneath the middle arch gatehouse, may have held prisoners if the main dungeon was full. It has been suggested that a Scottish raid in 1577 cleared both the dungeon and the other cellars of all their prisoners. One famous prisoner kept elsewhere was an auditor named William Worm. Worm was sent to Annick Castle by Henry VIII's chief minister, Cardinal Wolsey, who wanted to take over management of the 6th Earl's estates. Letters the Earl wrote to a friend mentioned the falsehood of mine own servants and certain secret communication between Wolsey and my treasurer. Was there a hidden plan between Wolsey and Worm? We may never know, but the Earl did later write to Wolsey, asking for permission to imprison Worm inside Annick Castle till he could make up his accounts to his lord's satisfaction. The tower that was William's prison later became known as the Auditor's Tower. The castle's inner courtyard, the final stop before entering the interiors of the keep. Entering the courtyard requires passing under an archway that is one of the castle's oldest surviving structures. Its most recognisable feature can be seen from the courtyard, a pattern known as dogtooth or chevron that was popular when the arch was first constructed in the mid-12th century. A chevron is an inverted v-shaped pattern, while the name dogtooth comes from the way the diagonal crosses resemble pointed teeth. This archway therefore dates from before the Percy family's purchase of Annick Castle in the year 1309. The previous owners were the Devesi family, Norman barons who ruled the castle from the end of the 11th century until the end of the 13th. Eustace Fitz John Devesi would have been baron when one of the earliest records of Annick Castle was written. In the year 1138, the chronicle of Richard, prior of Hexham, describes a munitissimum castellum, a most heavily fortified castle at Annick. This suggests a stone castle with archways like the one in the courtyard today may have already replaced an older wooden construction at Annick, possibly on the orders of Eustace Fitz John. On the wall of the courtyard is a well dating back to the 14th century where water would have been drawn up from around 14 metres below by a bucket and chain. In addition to water, the well has also held cannonballs. In the early 1460s, during the Wars of the Roses, the castle was under the control of around 300 soldiers loyal to Margaret of Anjou, the queen of Henry VI, but was under siege from Henry and Margaret's rival, the Earl of Warwick. Margaret's soldiers were evacuated through the sally port of the Poston Tower, where they were provided with horses and were able to escape, but before they did so, they pushed all their cannonballs down this well to prevent the besiegers using them once they took over. The entrance to the keep today is under a covered entrance known as a port cochere, which was added during the 19th century restoration of Annick Castle by Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland. Prior to this, the inner courtyard contained a greatly admired exterior staircase built for the first Duke and Duchess that expanded like a fan and led into the staterooms on the first floor. Before that was a staircase situated near the well which would have led upwards into the medieval banqueting hall. Today, the main entrance is on the ground floor and the 4th Duke's restoration moved a grand staircase inside the This first room, also known as the lower guard chamber, has functioned as the main entrance into the staterooms since the mid-19th century, when the 4th Duke of Northumberland restored Annick Castle. It was added to the castle at that time, along with the grand staircase and the upper guard chamber, which we'll explore in the next instalment of the tour. During the Second World War, the also served as a common room for pupils of Newcastle Church High School who were evacuated to the castle between 1940 and 1944. One of the most striking things about the room is its decorative display of weaponry on every wall. This was created in the early 20th century, but most of the weapons date back at least 100 years earlier to the lifetime of Hugh Percy, 2nd Duke of Northumberland. Before becoming Duke, Hugh had served in the military in Europe and in America, where he fought in early battles of the Revolutionary War and became friends with an indigenous leader whose anglicised name was Joseph Brandt. He inherited the dukedom from his father, also called Hugh, in 1786. By the end of the 18th century, Britain was under threat of potential invasion from Napoleon Bonaparte, and the 2nd Duke was given permission to form the Percy Tenantry Volunteers, a voluntary regiment made up of tenants from his estates across Northumberland. Just over 1,500 riflemen, cavalry and artillery became part of a network of home defence units across the country. The volunteers were trained, equipped and paid by the Duke, and when the military threat died down in the second decade of the 19th century, the PTV's weapons and equipment found a home at the castle. In this room, some of their pistols, sabres, powder horns, powder flasks, bayonets and other items can be seen. One wall of the hall also features armour dating back to the 17th century, said to have been left at the castle after the Battle of Dunbar in 1650 when a Scottish army loyal to King Charles II was defeated by the forces of the English Parliament led by Oliver Cromwell. After the battle, thousands of Scottish prisoners were kept overnight at Annick Castle before being marched south towards Durham. The decorative style of this room is in contrast to the other staterooms we'll explore on this tour, which are modelled after grand Italian palaces of the Renaissance. The walls of the grand staircase, built in the 1860s and leading up to those other rooms for example, feature Italian Carrara marble. At the foot of the staircase is a beautiful sculpture of Louisa Percy, formerly Louisa Drummond, who became 6th Duchess of Northumberland in 1867 when her husband inherited the title. The restoration of the castle at this time was led by Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland, who inherited the title on the death of his elder brother in 1847. Algernon had spent his early years in the Royal Navy before travelling the world, visiting the Cape of Good Hope off the coast of South Africa, as well as exploring Egypt and spending time in Italy. It was his love for the style of the Italian Renaissance of the 15th and 16th centuries that began his ambitious plans to restore Anac Castle in that same style. Anthony Salvin, born in nearby County Durham, was chosen to be the Duke's architect for the restoration works, which began in 1854. The interiors were entrusted to Luigi Canina, who was succeeded two years later by his assistant Giovanni Monteroli. Despite its name, this room was not intended for guards. It was designed as a hallway or vestibule for the state rooms beyond, and was one of the last rooms to be completed. Built by Salvin as part of a new structure that included the Porte Cocher directly below it, the guard chamber measures 9 metres square and 8 metres high. Monteroli designed the floor of the room, which consists of many hundreds of marble fragments. Inspired by the Roman Temple of Hadrian, it was laid in 1864. Another Italian, Giuseppe Nucci, carved the marble figures of Justice and Britannia that stand in the alcoves opposite the grand staircase. Artwork in this room includes four paintings by Venetian artist Canaletto, including views of Windsor Castle and Scion House, a portrait of the 10th Earl of Northumberland by Sir Anthony van Dyck, and two portraits of Helen Percy, 8th Duchess of Northumberland, who was painted by Hungarian artist Philip de Laszlo in 1916 and again in 1937. Next to the guard chamber is the doorway leading to the chapel, which replaced an 18th century chapel designed by Robert Adam for the first Duke and Duchess of Northumberland elsewhere in the castle. That chapel in turn replaced the that would have stood in the inner bailey. A priest's chair and lectern by Adam can still be seen in the chapel today. Seven tapestries from the 17th and 18th centuries hang on the chapel's walls. Two depict events in the life of Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor, while the other five tell parts of the biblical story of Tobit and Tobias. The library occupies the entire first floor of the Prudhoe Tower. This tower, which adds a dominating high central feature to the overall outline of Annick Castle, was named in honour of the 4th Duke of Northumberland who was given the title of Baron Prudhoe in 1816. Eleanor Percy, the 4th Duchess, laid the foundation stone in November 1854. A little over a year later it was finished. A plaque at the top of its flag tower states that Eleanor ascended the Prudhoe Tower which stands nearly 30 meters high in January 1856. The library itself contains around 14,000 books collected across multiple generations of the Percy family. First assembled by the 9th Earl of Northumberland over 400 years ago, the library collection was enhanced by his son and then in the first half of the 18th century by Frances, mother of the 1st Duchess. The 4th Duke employed librarian John Martin to expand the collection, while in the 20th century the 10th Duke of Northumberland re-established much of his ancestor's original collection. In 1855 the 4th Duke set up the Annick School of Carving, a group of 21 carvers from Newcastle, Sunderland, Edinburgh, Glasgow and London, overseen by Italian master carver Anton Buletti to create the decorative wood carvings seen in this room and throughout the staterooms. The four gilded decorations on the library ceiling, known as trophies, were made by the School of Carving. Three of these trophies celebrate art, music and science and the fourth is dedicated to the 4th Duke's interest in archaeology and the navy. He also equipped this room to function as a weather station and some of the weather instruments can still be seen today. The library has three fireplaces, each with a marble bust celebrating an English genius, the physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton, the philosopher and associate of the 9th Earl of Northumberland, Francis Bacon, and the playwright William Shakespeare, who featured members of the Percy family in several of his history plays. Just outside the library is a smaller room known as which contains artwork by Renaissance masters Titian and Sebastiano. Several of the paintings in this room form part of the Camuccini collection, 74 works collected by art dealers Pietro and Vincenzo Camuccini and purchased by the 4th Duke to form the basis of a new art collection of his own. One of the grandest rooms in Annick Castle, the saloon was the first room in the castle to be completely restored by the 4th Duke of Northumberland in the style of the Italian Renaissance. Its function was as a reception room used for hosting large gatherings and social occasions. By the 20th century it had also become known as the music room. A piano played by Elizabeth Percy, 10th Duchess, is still in the room today. The ceiling, designed by Giovanni Monteroli and made by the Annick School of Carving in the mid-19th century, was influenced by decorations found in Rome, where the fireplace and freeze panels were also produced. The School of Carving created double doors, window shutters, and picture frames for this room. The chandelier matches those hanging in the rooms on either side of the saloon, the ante-library and the Before they were installed at Annick Castle, these chandeliers hung in Northumberland House, the central London home of the Percy family, and were designed to hold 25 candles each. When Northumberland House was demolished in 1874, the chandeliers moved to Annick. They now use electric light. In the early 1820s, the 3rd Duke commissioned famous London upholsterers and cabinet makers Morrill and Hughes to supply furniture to Northumberland House. Some of this also moved to Annick Castle following the demolition, where it makes up the main suite of furniture in the saloon today. Northumberland House itself can be seen in a painting by Canaletto, which hangs in this room alongside three more of his works. Other paintings in the saloon include and two portraits by William Dobson, an English-born artist considered one of the most significant British painters of the 17th century. His self-portrait, in which Dobson can be seen between two courtiers of King Charles I, is full of symbolism and artistic technique. In 2008, the saloon was restored. A new carpet was designed and manufactured for the room, and new silk wall hangings were made, copied from the 19th century originals. Like the saloon in the last instalment, the drawing room was a space intended to receive and entertain guests. Also like the saloon, it is within a tower that dates back to the medieval Annick Castle. This tower may once have held the medieval kitchens. Its irregular shape posed a challenge for the 4th Duke of Northumberland's designer, Giovanni Monteroli, who was still able to create a symmetrical decorative scheme for the room. As well as making the ceiling to Monteroli's designs, the Annick School of Carving produced the doors, mirror frame, and window shutters of the drawing room. The shutters are often considered one of the best examples of the School of Carving's skill. Frederick Wilson, who was the castle's Clerk of Works from 1855 until 1859, recorded that a full panel of these shutters took a craftsman a year to complete. Two of the most impressive items in the drawing room are the large cabinets on either side of the mirror, which were originally created for the personal apartments of King Louis XIV of France at his Palace of Versailles. Made under the supervision of Domenico Cucci and completed in 1683, they were considered out of fashion by the mid-18th century and were sold in 1751. From then, their location is unknown until the 1820s when Hugh Percy, 3rd Duke of Northumberland, purchased them from a London dealer. These unique cabinets are made from ebony, marble, and bronze gilt, and feature panels of pietra dura, a highly skilled technique of cutting, polishing, and laying together precious or semi-precious stones to form a design. They underwent restoration in 2009, when the drawing room itself was also restored. Artwork in the drawing room includes more Italian paintings from the Camuccini Collection by artists such as Andrea del Sarto and Guido Reni, as well as a view of a Greek temple by celebrated British artist J.M.W. Turner. Just beyond the room is the China Gallery, a former servants' corridor recently redesigned to display four services of porcelain from the collection, including two 18th century services from the famous Meissen Manufactory. One of these was allegedly won by the 1st Duke of Northumberland in a porcelain lottery or raffle. The part of castle which now contains the dining room was also where the medieval Baronial Hall, or Great Hall, was located, making this area one of the centres of castle life from the 14th century onward. Like much of the castle, the hall was rearranged in the 1700s by the 1st Duke and Duchess of Northumberland, whose portraits now hang above the dining room fireplace. The 1st Duke and Duchess used the room's alcove for breakfasts, and guests were entertained on open days in the main part of the room. The current room, another result of the 4th Duke's restoration work, is slightly larger than the medieval hall would have been, measuring around 18 metres in length and 7 metres in height. The ceiling is another example of work by the Annex School of Carving, and is decorated with Percy family heraldry from across the centuries. Portraits of many generations of the family are displayed in the dining room, as are items associated with several of them. In one corner of the room is the Blessed Thomas Percy, the 7th Earl of Northumberland who was beheaded by Queen Elizabeth I in 1572. His death warrant, signed by the Queen, is now seen below his painting. In the opposite corner is Charlotte Percy, the 3rd Duchess, who in 1830 was presented with a beautiful decorative item known as the Hibernian vase. It too can be viewed in the dining room today. Charlotte's husband the 3rd Duke also has a portrait here, along with a ceremonial sword connected to his 1825 visit to France, where he represented King George IV at a coronation. The Percy state coach, now in the coach house within the grounds of Annick Castle, was purchased to use at the occasion. Decorated with Percy emblems and colours, the coach was restored in 2010. Towards the end of the 19th century, the 6th Duke of Northumberland, another family member with a portrait in this room, constructed an underground passage between the Victorian kitchens and the dining room to overcome the large distance between the two locations. The passage is no longer in use but its route can still be traced around the castle grounds by following the skylights that were installed for it. A hydraulic lift at the end of the passage sent food up three storeys to be served at the dining table. The portraits on the dining room walls and the decorations on its ceiling are reminders of the family who have owned Annick Castle for over 700 years and still do today. The modern use of the dining room for special dinners and events is also a reminder that while Annick Castle contains centuries of history, its story continues into the present and the future. These videos have only scratched the surface of Annick Castle's story, from its status as a border fortress repelling the invasions of Scottish kings, to its links with acclaimed knight and medieval rebel Harry Hotspur, to its transformation into family home and filming location for Blackadder, Downton Abbey, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and many more. There's always more to see, learn and experience at Annick Castle. Thank you for joining us.