Starborough Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

In a sandstone valley south of the River Eden, about three kilometres south-west of Edenbridge, Starborough Castle (also spelt Sterborough) occupies an almost square artificial island of about 0.8 hectares, surrounded by a broad water-filled moat. It was here that Reginald de Cobham, a companion-in-arms of Edward III, obtained in 1341 a licence to crenellate his manor house, which was transformed into a quadrangular castle. A 17th-century engraving and written sources show sandstone-faced buildings around a central courtyard, protected by a high curtain wall with round corner towers. In the aftermath of Agincourt, Charles of Orléans was one of the prisoners entrusted to the keeping of the Cobhams here. Slighted in 1648 on the orders of Parliament, the castle survives today only as buried foundations and in the masonry revetment of the moat. In the 18th century the island was raised and laid out as a landscape feature; in 1754 Sir James Burrow had a Gothic pavilion of dressed sandstone built there, reusing medieval stones. The site, protected as a scheduled monument, and its Grade II* listed pavilion now form a private residence that is not open to visitors.