Caverswall Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Caverswall Castle stands in the village of the same name, south-east of Stoke-on-Trent, in Staffordshire. The site combines two clearly legible periods: a medieval enclosure surrounded by a dry moat, of which the lower parts of walls about nine metres high survive, and an early 17th-century house set within this enclosure. The medieval castle grew out of a manor house of the Caverswall family, present from the 12th century, which was licensed to be fortified in 1275. Historians mention a quadrangular plan, corner towers and a keep. After a period under the Montgomery family, the estate was acquired around 1615 by Matthew Cradock, who had the present house built; it is attributed to the Smythsons, leading architects of the Elizabethan and Jacobean era. The red sandstone house, of three storeys topped with crenellated parapets and flanked by a square stair tower, was enlarged around 1890 with a wing and a turreted gatehouse reached across the moat by a two-arched bridge. Listed at Grade I, the ensemble remains private property today, and its commercial use has been regulated by the local authorities.