Brancepeth Castle

A succession of buildings has stood on the site, some five miles south-west of Durham. The first was a Norman castle raised by the Bulmer family, rebuilt in the late 14th century by the Nevilles, who held Brancepeth for many years until 1569, when the Crown confiscated it for the family's part in the Rising of the North.

The Crown granted the estate in the early 17th century to Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, then confiscated it back after his involvement in a poisoning scandal. Three men who had bought the castle from the King's Commissioners in 1633 sold it in 1636 to Ralph Cole of Newcastle, whose grandson Sir Ralph Cole, 2nd Baronet, sold it on 9 April 1701 to Sir Henry Belaysyse — whose daughter was involved with Bobby Shafto and was said to have inspired the famous song.

In 1796 the castle was acquired by William Russell of Newbottle, a wealthy banker and mine owner. His son Matthew Russell, Member of Parliament for Saltash in 1818, spent lavishly on its reconstruction in the 1820s to the designs of the architect John Paterson, and the present building is largely his work. It was improved in the mid-19th century by Anthony Salvin for a later William Russell, High Sheriff of Durham in 1841.

During the First World War the castle served as a hospital for convalescents from Newcastle General Hospital. In 1939 it became the regimental headquarters of the Durham Light Infantry, who put up a military camp of over 100 huts south of the village during the Second World War and remained at the castle until 1962.

In 1978 Margaret Dobson, wife of the publisher Dennis Dobson, bought the Grade I listed castle to store the firm's stock of books when the lease on its Notting Hill premises expired; her husband died that same year. She restored the fabric and interior — including the lead roof, stripped by an earlier tenant — refurbished function rooms for auctions and twice-yearly craft fairs, staged Shakespeare in the main courtyard, and let rooms. She died on 19 October 2014, aged 86, and the castle remains with the Dobson family.