Maxstoke Castle

Sir William de Clinton, first Earl of Huntingdon, built Maxstoke Castle in 1345 to a rectangular plan, with octagonal towers at each angle, a gatehouse on the east side, a residential range on the west, and the whole surrounded by a broad moat. Clinton died in 1354, but his widow, Juliana Leybourne, continued to spend time at Maxstoke even after her next marriage. Humphrey Stafford, first Duke of Buckingham, acquired the castle in 1437 by exchanging it for other manors in Northamptonshire, and made further additions to it.

During the Civil War, Maxstoke was garrisoned for Parliament. Its first known governor, in 1642–43, was Captain Layfield. Garrison musters show that between March 1644 and October 1645 the captain was Henry Kendall Sr, lord of the manor of Austrey, with his son Henry Kendall Jr serving as his lieutenant. The garrison also included several of the Kendalls' Austrey tenants: William Smart, a joiner's son, along with Henry Orton, Henry Spencer and John Crispe.

The present family, the Fetherston-Dilkes, first came into possession of Maxstoke in the 17th century; in the 18th century William Dilke of Maxstoke married Mary Fetherstone-Leigh of Packwood House near Knowle, and the two families and houses have been closely linked since. The castle has survived largely intact, and among its antiquities are a 15th-century chair on which Henry VII was crowned after the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, a table owned by Sir Everard Digby, cousin to the Digbys of Coleshill, around which the Gunpowder Plot was planned in 1605, and a "Whispering Door" — two doors sharing a common jamb — brought from Kenilworth Castle.

Maxstoke Castle is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and a Grade I listed building. It is opened to the public annually, usually in mid-June, in aid of local charities, and tours can be booked year round for historical groups. Its parkland, once a deer park, has been a golf course since 1898; deer can still be seen there.