High Head Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

High Head Castle stands on a wooded promontory overlooking the valley of the River Ive, in the parish of Skelton, some fifteen kilometres south of Carlisle, in Cumbria. The site carried a medieval fortification from the early 14th century, but what can be seen today is the shell of a Georgian country house built in the mid-18th century on the site of the castle. The red sandstone ashlar façade, eleven bays long and crowned by a pierced balustrade, is tentatively attributed to the architect James Gibbs. Gutted by fire in 1956, the house has since been roofless and entirely stripped of its interiors. A mid-16th-century Tudor wing, also ruined, survives to the west and is the last visible witness of the earlier residence. The interest of the place lies in this layering: a former fortified post on the Anglo-Scottish border, transformed into a Tudor manor house and then into a classical residence of high quality, now reduced to a spectacular ruin whose demolition was refused in 1985.