Lulworth Castle

Before the erection of the magnificent seventeenth-century mansion by Inigo Jones, there existed in early days a castle here, as we read that Robert, Earl of Gloucester, in 1146, took the castle of “Lullewarde” for the Empress Maud, whose natural brother and most powerful champion he was. East Lulworth was the ancient seat of the Newburgh family, the first of whom was a Norman, viz., Henry, second son of Roger de Bellemont, Earl of Mellent, who was made Earl of Warwick by the Conqueror, and placed here, dispossessing the original owners of the manor, the De Lulleworthes. The Newburgh family transmitted the place from father to son until Christian, only child of Sir Roger Newburgh, in 1514, brought the property in marriage to Sir John Marney, by whose daughter Elizabeth E. and W. Luhworth and other estates passed, through the Poynings, to Lord Thomas Howard, son of the Duke of Norfolk, created Viscount Howard of Bindon in 1559. His son Thomas, dying s.p., left his estates to his kinsman Thomas, Earl of Suffolk, who died 1619. In 1641 the Howards sold Lulworth to Humphrey Weld, of Holdwell, Herts, and his descendant (Reginald J. Weld) still holds the property (1896).

Leland says that the ancient house of the Newburghs lay near the church of East Lulworth, and near the W. end of the church foundations have been dug up, and many ruins appear, probably its remains. (Hutchins.) The existing castle was partly built by Thomas, Lord Bindon, about 1600, though .not completed till fifty years after. It is not a defensible castle, though a sort of imitation of one, being a superb pile consisting of a huge cubic block of four storeys, with a round tower of five storeys at each corner, partly surrounded by a terrace, and standing in the midst of the wild chalk downs. But although not architecturally a castle, it was garrisoned in the seventeenth-century Civil War, at first for the King, and then, in 1643-4, by the Parliament, as a check on Cork; and when the Roundheads quitted it they did immense injury to the fabric, the lead and other materials being stolen and sold. Both James I. and Charles II. visited this castle, and in later times it was employed as a refuge for Charles X. of France and his family, when they fled from Paris in 1830 at the Revolution which placed the Citizen King upon the throne. (Castles Of England, Sir James D. Mackenzie, 1896)