• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Big Days Out

great free and pay for places to visit in the British Isles

  • England
    • Avon
    • Bedfordshire
    • Berkshire
    • Buckinghamshire
    • Cambridgeshire
    • Cheshire
    • Cornwall
    • County Durham
    • Cumbria
    • Derbyshire
    • Devon
    • Dorset
    • Essex
    • Gloucestershire
    • Hampshire
    • Herefordshire
    • Hertfordshire
    • Huntingdonshire
    • Isle Of Wight
    • Kent
    • Lancashire
    • Leicestershire
    • Lincolnshire
    • London
    • Merseyside
    • Middlesex
    • Norfolk
    • Northamptonshire
    • Northumberland
    • Nottinghamshire
    • Oxfordshire
    • Shropshire
    • Somerset
    • Staffordshire
    • Suffolk
    • Surrey
    • Sussex
    • Tyne & Wear
    • Warwickshire
    • West Midlands
    • Wiltshire
    • Worcestershire
    • Yorkshire
  • Ireland
    • Co. Londonderry
    • County Antrim
    • County Armagh
    • County Cork
    • County Down
    • County Fermanagh
    • County Kerry
    • County Mayo
    • County Tyrone
  • Scotland
    • Angus
    • Ayrshire
    • Borders
    • Dundee
    • Edinburgh
    • Glasgow
    • Invernessshire
    • Kincardineshire
    • Perthshire
    • South Lanarkshire
    • Stirling
  • Wales
    • Cardiff
    • Clwydd
    • Dyfed
    • Gwent
    • Gwynedd
    • Mid Glamorgan
    • Powys
    • South Glamorgan
    • West Glamorgan
You are here: Home / England / Hampshire / Wolvesey Castle

Wolvesey Castle

March 3, 2010 By Big Days Out Leave a Comment

Wolvesey has been an important residence of the wealthy and powerful Bishops of Winchester since Anglo-Saxon times. Standing next to Winchester Cathedral, the extensive surviving ruins of the palace date largely from the 12th-century work of Bishop Henry of Blois. The last great occasion her was on 25 July 1554, when Queen Mary and Philip of Spain held their wedding breakfast in the East Hall.

On the E. of the cathedral of Winchester are the ruins of the noble episcopal palace of this name, which was built as a strong castle by the warlike Bishop, Henry de Blois, brother of King Stephen, in 1138. It extended to the limits of the city in that quarter, close to the branch of the river which skirted it, and the thickness of the outer walls seems to show that they formed also the city’s protection here, before the erection of the later boundary walls. The walls of the keep and a great portion of those of the enceinte are still nearly perfect, and are of .good Norman work. The interior is a ruin, but a considerable part of the partition walls and part of the refectory remain, and contain a fine Norman arch and window. Little can be made out of the Perpendicular chapel, built by Bishop Langton; the E. and S. side remain, and the W. end joins the modern palace. The greater part of the present buildings were erected by Bishop Morley. The name is derived perhaps from that of some Saxon lord of the “ey”, or island, formed once by the river, though the common origin is alleged to be the tribute of wolves’ heads exacted here by Edgar.

As a castle it was besieged by Robert, Earl of Gloucester, in the cause of his half-sister the Empress Maud, but, with his ally David, King of Scotland, he was forced to retire from its walls. When Henry II. set about the destruction of all the castles he could put an end to in the kingdom, he dismantled Wolvesey, but still it remained “a castelle well tourid” until the days of Cromwell; for although these princely prelates possessed many other grand houses, the revenues of the See sufficed to keep up their fabrics, which did not always happen with the ordinary proprietors of such costly buildings. It was here that Queen Mary first welcomed her husband, Philip of Spain, and here the marriage festivities and dances took place after that grim bridal.

When Sir William Waller took Winchester in 1644, all but the chapel was dismantled: twenty years later Bishop Morley erected a new palace on the site, which was pulled down by Bishop North at the end of the 18th century, its materials being sold to a builder. (Castles Of England, Sir James D. Mackenzie, 1896)

Website

Coordinates: 51.0583382~-1.3108100

Map

St. Michael Ward, England, SO23 9ND, GB

View Larger Map

Filed Under: Hampshire Tagged With: Castles, English Heritage

Previous Post: « Winchester Castle
Next Post: Yarmouth Castle »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Location Search

Popular

  1. Wolvesey Castle
  2. Hanwell Castle
  3. Shirburn Castle
  4. Contact Big Days Out
  5. About Big Days Out

Locations

Tags

Anglo-Saxon Art Galleries Attraction Battlefield Castles Cathedrals - Ecclesiastical Country Park Documents And Archives English Heritage Free Gardens Green Flag Award Winners hotel Houses Industrial History Iron Age Medieval Military Museums National Trust Roman Sandford Award Winners Sports And Leisure Steam Railway Theme Park Tudor World Heritage Sites Zoos And Wildlife Parks

Footer

 

 

 

 

 

  • About Big Days Out
  • Contact Big Days Out
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie policy (UK)

Copyright © 2025 · Log in

Manage Cookie Consent
We use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. We do this to improve browsing experience and to show (non-) personalised ads. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional cookies Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}