Bolingbroke Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

At the foot of the Lincolnshire Wolds, where the chalk hills give way to the low-lying Fens, the ruins of Bolingbroke Castle occupy a meadow south of the village of Old Bolingbroke. Although the site is now reduced to a height of only a few metres, it remains unusually legible: a regular hexagonal plan, round towers at the angles and a wide moat still partly filled with water. Founded in the early 13th century by Ranulf de Blondeville, Earl of Chester and Lincoln, the castle became a possession of the House of Lancaster in the 14th century. Its fame rests above all on one event: the birth within its walls of the future King Henry IV, son of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster. Already dilapidated by the early 17th century, it was besieged during the English Civil War in 1643 and then left to decay by the victorious Parliamentarians. Excavated and consolidated in the second half of the 20th century, the site is protected both as a scheduled monument and as a Grade I listed building. It is in the care of English Heritage and accessible to the public, offering a clear reading of a 13th-century courtyard castle and its setting of fishponds and outer enclosures.