Astwell Castle

Astwell Castle stands in the rolling countryside of Northamptonshire, about two and a half kilometres south-west of the village of Wappenham. It is a manor house rather than a true castle, set in the parish of Helmdon one and a half kilometres to the west. The building began in the 15th century under Thomas Lovett II, who acquired the estate in 1471. Later owners enlarged and altered it, most notably the Shirleys in the 17th century and the Grenvilles in the 18th. By the 19th century parts had been dismantled, leaving a farmhouse and a broad embattled tower. The house is worth visiting for its layered history and surviving features. The gatehouse tower still bears the arms of Sir George Shirley, who died there in 1622. The building was Grade II listed in 1953 and partly restored in 1958 for Mrs Joan Wake. In 2019 it was reported to retain fine mullions, window seats, leaded lights, fireplaces and an oak staircase. A B-17 bomber crashed nearby in 1943, and American airmen are remembered in Helmdon parish church. Inside, the gatehouse tower has a spiral stair leading to rooms and the castellated roof. The basement once served as a porter’s lodge, and upper floors contain garderobes and blocked doorways to external galleries. Outside, only fragments remain of the once large courtyard house, but the embattled tower and surviving mullioned windows hint at its former scale. The grounds include traces of a deer park created in 1547. Views from the tower roof look across the site and the surrounding countryside.