 |
| Belvoir Castle. Image: Wikimedia |
Home to the Rutland family since Tudor
times the present Belvoir Castle is the third to be built on this superb site
above the lovely Vale of Belvoir.
The castle is near the villages of Redmile,
Woolsthorpe, Knipton, Harston, Harlaxton, Croxton Kerrial, Bottesford, among
others. According to antiquarian John Leland, "the castle stands on the
very nape of a high hill, steep up each way, partly by nature, partly by the
working of men's hands."
The first castle was Norman built by Robert
de Todeni who came ashore with William the Conqueror, but his was destroyed
during the Wars of the Roses. The second castle met a similar fate during the
Civil War and the third, although almost destroyed by fire was extensively
rebuilt and restored during the early nineteenth century.
 |
| Belvoir Castle, c1819. Source: Wikimedia Commons |
 |
Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire, England
from Morris's Country Seats (1880).
Source: Wikimedia Commons
|
The exterior of the castle is medieval in
appearance with towers, turrets and battlements, but the interior is furnished
in a more classical style with painted ceilings, paneling and rich Regency
furnishings. Works of art include paintings by Poussin, Reynolds, Gainsborough,
Van Dyck, Hogarth and Holbein, and Gobelin tapestries adorn the walls of the
Regent’s Gallery. There is also a military museum devoted to the 17th/21st
Lancers.
 |
| Inside Belvoir Castle. Source: Wikimedia Commons |
 |
| Belvoir Castle Church. Source: Wikimedia Commons |
Today, the Manners family still occupy a corner
of the castle. It was also feature in a
number of films and television programs, most notably the Little Lord Fauntleroy starring Sir Alec Guinness and The Da Vinci Code (representing Castel
Gandolfo, the Pope's summer residence). Belvoir Castle also hosts the Belvoir
Fireworks, a pyrotechnic and firework competition every mid-August, which
attracts thousands of visitors to the castle grounds.
.png)
0 Comments