Castle in Leicestershire

Situated four miles west of the city of Leicester, Kirby Muxloe castle is found within the village of the same name. Kirby Muxloe Castle was originally built of over 100,000 red fired bricks it was one of the earliest and last quadrangular brickwork castles to be built in England. Today the remains of the unfinished 15th century fortified mansion are surrounded by a moat lined with brick and comprise of just a rectangular gatehouse and the south west tower which have recently been conserved. The gatehouse is now only one storey high, however the black and red diamond brickwork patterning and carvings are still visible. The tower stands at almost its full height and also displays the same black and red diamond patterned brickwork and is complete with battlements. Facilities The castle remains are open to the public between May and August 10am until 5pm at weekends and bank holidays. There was a settlement on the site from the 9th century which continued to grow until the 14th century when a fortified manor house was built on the site by the Pakeman family. William, 1st Baron of Hastings; second cousin of Edward I, acquired the castle in 1480 after many years of leasing it and founded a brick castle on the site. He was given a license to crenellate the castle which he never realised as he was beheaded in the Tower of London in 1483 for treason. The family kept the castle and from time to time added roofs and floors to the towers; however in 1484 the castle was abandoned. Later the new owner Sir Robert Banaster removed much of the building material to build a farmhouse nearby. In 1911 the castle was placed under the guardianship of the Ministry of Works and now managed by English Heritage who have carried out extensive restoration work. Kirby Muxloe Castle Kirby Muxloe Castle Kirby Muxloe Castle

Ashby de la Zouch Castle is a ruined medieval fortification situated in the market town of Ashby de la Zouch in Leicestershire, central England. Managed by English Heritage, it stands as one of the more atmospheric and historically layered castle ruins in the East Midlands, drawing visitors who come both for its genuine historical weight and for its unexpectedly dramatic underground passages. The castle is notable not merely as an architectural curiosity but as a site that played a meaningful role in English history across several turbulent centuries, from the Wars of the Roses through the English Civil War. It is particularly associated with Mary Queen of Scots, who was held here during part of her long captivity in England, lending the place a melancholy romantic resonance that has appealed to writers and visitors alike for centuries. The site's origins lie in a Norman manor house, with the earliest recorded structure dating to the late eleventh century. The property passed through several hands before coming into the possession of William Lord Hastings in 1461, a powerful Yorkist nobleman and close ally of Edward IV. It was Hastings who transformed what had been a relatively modest fortified manor into something approaching a grand castle, adding the great tower that still dominates the ruins today. This Hastings Tower, rising to a considerable height even in its ruined state, was built in the 1470s and represents a late flowering of medieval castle architecture. Hastings himself met a dramatic end in 1483 when Richard III, then Lord Protector, had him summarily executed at the Tower of London without trial, a moment immortalised in Shakespeare's Richard III. The castle remained in the Hastings family for generations, and during the English Civil War it was held for the Royalist cause, withstanding a lengthy Parliamentary siege before eventually surrendering in 1646. After the war, Parliament ordered the castle to be slighted — deliberately damaged to prevent further military use — which accounts for the partial demolition that gives the ruins their current character, including the dramatically split Hastings Tower, which leans at a precarious angle as a direct result of that deliberate destruction. Physically, the castle rewards a slow, careful visit. Walking through the site, you move across grassy ground studded with substantial masonry remnants, the remains of a kitchen, a great hall range, and various domestic buildings arranged around what was once a courtyard. The Hastings Tower itself is the centrepiece, its sheared face exposing the interior floors and walls like a cross-section of medieval domestic architecture, the stonework streaked with centuries of weathering into warm ochres and greys. One of the most memorable features of any visit is the underground passage connecting the Hastings Tower to the nearby St Helen's Church, a tunnel that dates from the castle's active period and can still be explored today. Descending into it is a genuinely striking experience: the air is cool and still, the stonework close, and the sense of historical depth palpable in a way that open-air ruins sometimes cannot achieve. The site has a quiet, contemplative quality on ordinary weekday visits, with birdsong from the surrounding trees and the occasional distant sound of the town beyond the walls filtering through. The town of Ashby de la Zouch itself, which surrounds the castle, is a pleasant, well-preserved Leicestershire market town with an independent character and a reasonable selection of shops, cafes, and pubs clustered around the central streets. The castle grounds are adjacent to the town centre, making it easy to combine a visit with time spent exploring the town. The area is predominantly agricultural lowland, gently rolling and green, with the National Forest — a large-scale reforestation project covering parts of Leicestershire, Staffordshire, and Derbyshire — beginning not far to the north and west. Nearby places of interest include Calke Abbey, a National Trust property roughly ten miles to the north-west, and the town of Coalville a few miles to the south-east, which tells a contrasting industrial story of the region's coal-mining heritage. For practical purposes, the castle is straightforward to visit. It lies right in the centre of the town and is accessible on foot from the Market Street area. Those arriving by car will find several public car parks nearby in the town centre. There is no direct railway station in Ashby de la Zouch itself, so visitors travelling by public transport will need to take a bus from nearby rail-connected towns such as Burton upon Trent or Loughborough. English Heritage members enter free of charge; non-members pay a modest admission fee. The site is generally open from late March through to the end of October, with reduced or no access during winter months, so checking English Heritage's current schedule before visiting is advisable. The grounds are reasonably accessible for most visitors, though the underground passage and some tower areas involve steps and uneven surfaces that may not be suitable for all. The castle is particularly atmospheric in the softer light of late afternoon, and visiting outside of school holidays gives the best chance of exploring the ruins in relative quiet. A literary footnote of some significance attaches to this place: Sir Walter Scott visited Ashby de la Zouch and used it as a setting in his enormously popular 1819 novel Ivanhoe, placing a grand jousting tournament in the vicinity and drawing on the castle's medieval character to colour his romantic vision of Saxon and Norman England. While the novel is fiction, Scott's vivid description brought the castle renewed fame during the nineteenth century and contributed to a lasting association between the place and the chivalric medieval imagination. This connection made the castle a place of literary pilgrimage for many Victorian readers, adding yet another layer to an already richly stratified history.