Historia

Devizes Castle Gatehouse

The original castle built by Bishop Roger of Salisbury in reign of Henry I has virtually disappeared. It was partly in ruins in the C16, but finally destroyed at the end of the Civil Wars by Order of Parliament. The site is a magnificent one with a great mound and moat. The mound falls steeply on 3 sides towards the undulating ground to the south-west. The rich parklands of the Old Park form with the Castle mound a fine piece of landscape, which should always be preserved. The plan of the town in the form of a fan with the Castle as the centre of the segment, seems to be too formal to be a haphazard growth. It is reasonably certain that the town grew after the building of the Castle, and it would be interesting to know how far the plan was dictated by the Bishopric of Salisbury, so closely connected with the Castle itself, as occurred at a slightly later date in the case of Salisbury city. The existing structure was begun in 1842 by Goodridge of Bath. Highly asymmetrical. The ashlar faced keep and turret to the south are Goodridge with paired lights divided by colonettes in narrow openings. The rest to the north is a massive rock faced enlargement of 1860's, 70's and 80's. Crenellated parapet, buttresses, superimposed bays, oriel windows and large mullioned and transomed windows. The north tower however, is partly of C17 brick and was originally a windmill. It's rubble base may be part of the original castle. Around the north tower's base, facing west, is a bowed fernery with stone tiled roof, round interlaced arches forming pointed lights with Norman style shafts dividing. Adjoining the fernery to the north is a fine glass house with octagonal base and a stepped domical roof with crowning finial. The entrances are to the east and west: wooden gables with ornamented bargeboards supported by flanking paired colonettes with foliate capitals, on high pedestals. A terrace surrounds the castle with a battlemented parapet. On the west side towards the centre are 2 short sections of arcaded wall, one incorporating in arch some original Norman stone work of zig zag pattern. The interior of the castle is designed in a mixture of neo-Norman, Gothic and C16 styles.