Ogle Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Ogle Castle stands at the eastern end of the north row of the hamlet of Ogle, in the parish of Whalton, south-west of Morpeth (Northumberland). Seat of the Ogle family, who held the manor from the 12th to the late 16th century, it is today a private Grade I listed house, surrounded by the remains of a double moat protected together with the deserted medieval village and its field system. In 1341 Robert de Ogle obtained a licence to crenellate, and a document of 1415 records a "castrum" at Ogle. The medieval complex probably comprised a tower attached to a residential range; the present house may correspond to the great hall of a castle with a curtain wall and half-round towers. The main block was remodelled in the early 16th century reusing the medieval masonry, and a west wing was added during the same century. In the late 16th century the estate passed to the Cavendish family. Hutchinson still saw the remains of a circular tower to the east in 1776; it was later destroyed when a gable was rebuilt and farm buildings were added. A restoration took place in the mid-20th century. The L-plan house, of squared stone with a stone slate roof, retains 16th-century windows, large fireplaces, beamed ceilings and a newel stair. The inner moat remains well defined on the north and west, up to 4 m deep.