Portal:Cheshire/Selected article/19



Peckforton Castle is a grade-I-listed Victorian country house built in the style of a medieval castle. Faced in red sandstone, it features a gatehouse, portcullis, dry moat, two large towers and external windows that are little more than arrow slots. It stands in woodland at the north end of the Peckforton Hills, near the villages of Peckforton and Beeston. The ruins of the genuinely medieval Beeston Castle are about ¾ mile to the north.

The castle was built in 1844–50 as a family home for John Tollemache, a wealthy landowner, estate manager and Member of Parliament, and his family continued to live in the house until 1939. It was designed by Anthony Salvin in the Gothic style. George Gilbert Scott described the building in 1858 as "the largest and most carefully and learnedly executed Gothic mansion of the present" and "the very height of masquerading".

The chapel and entrance lodge, also by Salvin, are listed at grade II*, and part of the surrounding woodland is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The castle has been used as a filming location, including for the Doctor Who serial The Time Warrior and a 1991 film of Robin Hood.

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