Also known as Bagot’s Castle, the standing and buried remains of Baginton or Bagot’s Castle probably built circa 1397 by Sir William Bagot. Bagot’s tower keep castle was built on the site of an earlier motte castle, by the 16th century Baginton castle was in ruins and by the 18th century only the moat and some rubble remained. Excavations between 1933-48 exposed the foundations of the 14th century keep.
Not generally open to the public.
These lands, near Coventry, were the property of Turchill de Warwick, who built Warwick Castle for William the Conqueror, but his posterity were not suffered to enjoy any of his property by the severity of William against all English nobles. The place took its name from the Bagots, who owned it from the time of Richard II. till the reign of Henry V., and after them it went to the Bromleys. There was a castellated mansion reared there of which nothing remains except the earthworks, and one piece of masonry showing where the castle stood.
Henry I. granted the lands to the de Arden family, who derived from the son of the Saxon Turchill; they were succeeded by the family of le Savage (32 Henry I III.), and in the same reign the King added this to the large possessions of the le Marmions of Tamworth (q.v.). The only recorded point of historic interest respecting this castle seems to be the fact that Henry, Earl of Hereford, the son of John of Gaunt, and afterwards King Henry IV., lodged in it previous to his intended combat with Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk (21 Richard II. 1398), and hence he issued on the morning of the projected encounter, armed at all points, and mounted on a white charger, and repaired to the lists at Gosford Green, near Coventry, where the incidents so closely narrated by Shakespeare took place. The lances were measured and proved of equal length, and delivered, and the champions about to spur at each other, when the King stopped the contest. banishing Bolingbroke for ten years from the country, and Mowbray for life. (Castles Of England, Sir James D. Mackenzie, 1896)
Henry I. granted the lands to the de Arden family, who derived from the son of the Saxon Turchill; they were succeeded by the family of le Savage (32 Henry I III.), and in the same reign the King added this to the large possessions of the le Marmions of Tamworth (q.v.). The only recorded point of historic interest respecting this castle seems to be the fact that Henry, Earl of Hereford, the son of John of Gaunt, and afterwards King Henry IV., lodged in it previous to his intended combat with Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk (21 Richard II. 1398), and hence he issued on the morning of the projected encounter, armed at all points, and mounted on a white charger, and repaired to the lists at Gosford Green, near Coventry, where the incidents so closely narrated by Shakespeare took place. The lances were measured and proved of equal length, and delivered, and the champions about to spur at each other, when the King stopped the contest. banishing Bolingbroke for ten years from the country, and Mowbray for life. (Castles Of England, Sir James D. Mackenzie, 1896)
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