Tong Castle

Tong Castle stood in Shropshire between Wolverhampton and Telford, on ground once occupied by a 12th-century medieval fortress. The later house was built in 1765 by George Durant after he bought the estate from the Duke of Kingston. Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown designed the surrounding parkland, shaping two new lakes and planting oak and beech clumps still visible today. The castle itself mixed Gothic shapes with Strawberry Hill details such as ogee domes and bay windows with circular panes. Its red-brick core came from the 16th-century main block, while stone from a nearby college was reused in the walls. The house is remembered for its early Gothic style, begun only sixteen years after Horace Walpole started Strawberry Hill. It was defended for the King during the Civil War by William Careless and George Mainwaring, and later became the birthplace of Maria Fitzherbert in 1756. She grew up in the Red Room and later married the future George IV, though their union was never officially recognised. The Earl of Bradford acquired the estate in 1854 and let it to the Hartley family until 1909. After a fire in 1911 the castle fell into ruin and was demolished in 1954. Foundations of the towers and the two pools shaped by Brown remain on the motorway verge. Flagstones from the house were taken to Albrighton’s war memorial in 1920. The site is now Grade II listed for its architectural interest, marking the spot where one of England’s first Gothic country houses once stood.