Lambton Castle

Lambton Castle stands on high ground above Chester-le-Street in County Durham. It is a stately home and the family seat of the Earls of Durham. The castle was built between 1820 and 1828 around an older 17th-century mansion called Harraton Hall. John Lambton, the first Earl of Durham and former Governor General of Canada, commissioned the work. Architects Joseph Bonomi the Elder and his son Ignatius designed the castle in the Norman style fashionable at the time. The castle has seen changes over the years. In the 1860s Sydney Smirke added a great hall, but much of this was demolished in 1932 because the building had sunk unevenly. The family then moved to the smaller Biddick Hall on the estate. The surrounding park is enclosed by a high wall and still hosts the family’s annual pheasant shoot. Between 1972 and 1980 the grounds housed Lambton Lion Park, a private zoo that later closed. Today the castle appears in BBC drama and is being adapted for new uses. Plans aim to turn it into a wedding venue or boutique hotel to help pay for upkeep and conservation. The estate’s trustees manage the project on behalf of the family. The grounds remain a quiet green space, bordered by the high wall and linked to nearby roads by land sold for development.