Fifty years after a disastrous fire in 1929 left the building a gutted shell, Lulworth Castle has once again been opened to the public, but in a rather surprising form. In a combined conservation initiative between English Heritage and its owners – lasting nine years and costing about 5 million pounds – it has been turned into a roofed ruin. Externally, this appears as it did the day before the fire, but the interior remains essentially untouched, scorched and with the bare bones of the fabric exposed. The recent conservation work has generated a great deal of information about the development of the building and allowed the first accurate reconstruction of its original seventeenth -century internal plan. The early history of Lulworth suggests that its remarkable design, with its trappings of defence, illustrates the continued popularity of the castle as a residence beyond the Middle Ages.Opening Times: 28 March – 31 Oct, 10am – 6pm. 1 Nov – 25 March, 10am – 4pm. Admission: Adult ?4.00, Child ?3, Conc. ?3.50.
Location: In E Lulworth off B3070. 3m NE of Lulwoth Cove.Suggested Further Reading:
- M Girouard – Life in the English Country House (Yale, 1978)
- J Manco and F Kelly – ‘Lulworth Castle from 1700’ in Architectural History XXXIV (1991), pp. 144-77
- M L Phipps – Nunney Castle, Somerset:fact and fiction, Unpublished M A Thesis, Courtauld Institute, Universityof London 1995
- S. Thurley – The Royal Palaces of Tudor England (Yale, 1993)
- Warkworth Castle: Northumberland County History, V, (Newcastle, 1899)
