Brancepeth Castle
Earliest Castle (pre 1176)
It is believed that an Anglo-Saxon Motte and Bailey wooden castle originally occupied this site and was given as part of the Honour of Brancepeth to a Norman baron, Peter de Humez, shortly after the Norman Conquest in 1066. On his death the castle was left to his surviving daughter Sybilia who was married to Ansketil de Bulmer from Sheriff Hutton. (The Anglo Saxon de Bulmers were strong supporters of the Norman rulers and were Sheriffs of Yorkshire.)
Their son Bertram built the first stone castle at Brancepeth in around 1140, during ‘the Anarchy’, the 15-year-long civil war between the Empress Matilda and King Stephen, each claiming the English throne. Bertram supported King Stephen, the eventual victor, and during this time the Brancepeth estates grew to be one of the largest in the region. Parts of this original castle can still be found in the curtain wall.
The First Nevilles (1176-1390)
On Bertram’s death the castle passed to his daughter Emma, who, widowed in her teens, took as her second husband Geoffrey de Neville from Ashby in Linconshire, around 1176. Geoffrey de Neville was descended from one of the admirals of the fleet that brought William to England in 1066.
Their son, Henry, inherited the Brancepeth estates and attended the signing of the Magna Carta by King John. The following year he was forced to pledge the castle to the king as surety against further rebellion. Though married he had no surviving issue so on his death the estates passed to his sister Isabel, the wife of Robert FitzMeldred of Raby.
Their son Geoffrey inherited the lordship of both Brancepeth and Raby, and adopted his mother’s family name of Neville – possibly a condition of inheritance, but also a political move to enhance his status at Court, a Norman name being preferable to the Anglo-Saxon FitzMeldred.
Seat of Power (1390-1569)
Over the next six generations, Geoffrey’s descendants steadily accumulated wealth, status and power, culminating in John, 3rd Baron Raby, and his son Ralph, 1st Earl of Westmorland. In the final decades of the fourteenth century they rebuilt the castle as a ‘palace fortress’, and most of this structure remains today.
The Nevilles had become one of the most powerful families of England and subsequently played a pivotal role in the Wars of the Roses. Cecily Neville, youngest daughter of Ralph and wife of Richard Duke of York, was mother to Kings Edward IV and Richard III, and great-grandmother of Henry VIII.
The Nevilles’ tenure at Brancepeth came to an abrupt end in 1569. Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmorland, together with Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland, planned the Rising of the North, an armed attempt to depose Queen Elizabeth and put her cousin Mary Queen of Scots on the English throne to re-establish a Catholic succession. The rebellion was brutally crushed and Neville fled to Flanders where he died in poverty, all his estates forfeit to the Crown.
Slow Decline (1569-1796)
The castle was held by the Crown for about 40 years before being granted to Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset. Very soon the castle was taken back from Carr when he was found guilty of the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury.
From Carr it passed to the Prince of Wales, later to be Charles I, who was eventually forced to surrender it to the City of London from whom he had borrowed vast sums. The estate was sold off and over the next 150 years the castle changed hands many times, the building starting to fall into disrepair.
One notable owner was Bridget Belasyse (also known as Mary), who inherited the castle from her father in the mid eighteenth century: she fell in love with Bobby Shafto of Whitworth Hall, just across the River Wear from Brancepeth, and her love became the subject of a well-known north country song. Bobby married another and Bridget is said to have died of a broken heart.
Extensive Building (1796-1925)
In 1796 Brancepeth was bought by William Russell, a Sunderland banker. The Russells of Brancepeth became one of four great coal-owning families in the north known as the 'Grand Allies'. On William’s death in 1817 his son Matthew, who was the richest commoner in England, planned the remodelling of Brancepeth as a stately home, though he probably did not see the end result, as he died in 1822; it was left to his wife Elizabeth (nee Tennyson) and her brother Charles to complete the project.
Matthew and Elizabeth’s son died a bachelor, so the castle passed to his sister Emma Maria, who had married Gustavus Hamilton, 7th Viscount Boyne. At the outbreak of the First World War the 9th Viscount offered the castle for use as a hospital, and the Hamilton-Russell family moved out, deciding in 1922 to make their home permanently at their estate in Shropshire.
Infantry and Laboratory (1939-1979)
In 1939 the castle was leased to the War Office, and became the headquarters of the Durham Light Infantry until 1961. The castle and estates were sold by the Hamilton-Russells in 1948 to the 2nd Duke of Westminster, then broken up in the 1960s, with the castle building being first leased then sold to J. A. Jobling, Sunderland glass manufacturers, for use as their research laboratories. This ownership was short-lived as Jobling was bought out by the American firm Corning, who transferred all operations to the US.
Dobson Family (1979-present)
After a period of vacancy and decay the Castle was acquired by the Dobson family as a family home and book warehouse for their publishing business. Though the publishing company has closed, the castle is still home to the second, third and fourth generations of this family who are restoring it as funds allow.
