Walworth Castle

The present house stands on the site of a manor house or castle built around 1150 by the Hansard family; there is no evidence that the building was ever used for defence. Title fell into the hands of the House of Neville after the Black Death of 1349, and was reclaimed by Robert Hansard in 1391. It passed to Sir Richard Hansard in 1395, to his son and grandson, both Richard, in 1454 and 1466, to Sir William Hansard in 1508, and in 1521 to Sir William's short-lived son William and then to William's infant daughter Elizabeth. Elizabeth married Sir Francis Ayscough in 1539, carrying the castle to the Ayscoughs. It passed to her son William Ayscough in 1563, and because there were no further heirs it was sold.

In about 1579 Thomas Jennison, Auditor General of Ireland, purchased the manor of High Walworth from the Ayscoughs. He demolished most of the medieval house apart from its south-west tower and built the present castle, whose fabric is still identifiable as sixteenth-century in date; his architect was probably Thomas Holt. Jenison died in 1586 and his widow, Elizabeth née Birch, inherited.

It was during Elizabeth's ownership that James VI of Scotland stayed at Walworth on 14 May 1603 while travelling to his coronation as king of England, and he is said to have knighted her son-in-law George Freville in return for bountiful entertainment at the castle. Elizabeth died in 1605 and her son William Jenison inherited. The castle became dilapidated because he did not live there, because he was in debt, and because he was imprisoned in 1610 and again in 1612 for being Roman Catholic.

The Jennisons were a strongly Catholic family. In 1678 Thomas Jenison was accused of involvement in the Popish Plot to assassinate Charles II, arrested by Titus Oates and thrown into Newgate Prison. Francis Jennison sold the estate and emigrated to Europe in 1679, possibly for that reason. Chancery divided the castle from the rest of the estate in 1681 and awarded it to Robert Jenison; the two were reunited in 1687 when Ralph Jenison bought the whole estate for £6,205. In 1689 the castle was searched for arms in response to suspicions of a potential rebellion against the Protestants William III and Mary II. Ralph Jenison inherited at the age of ten in 1704, later renovated the castle at great expense and died in debt, so that it was sold again — for £16,000 in 1759, to the wine merchant Matthew Stephenson.

The Newcastle merchant John Harrison bought the castle in 1775. His daughter Anne married Arthur Aylmer in 1807 — youngest son of Sir FitzGerald Aylmer, 6th Bt., an officer of the 68th Regiment of Foot later promoted lieutenant-general — and the castle passed to the Aylmer family at Harrison's death in 1819. After the general was buried at Heighington in 1831, John Harrison Aylmer inherited: he repaired the roof and replaced the soldier statues on the towers with pillars topped with balls, made to look like the statues. In 1868 he, his wife and their eldest son were killed in the Abergele rail disaster, and the castle went to his sons Vivian and Edmund, aged twelve and nine. Vivian became High Sheriff of Durham and a big game hunter who explored Somaliland and crossed the Horn of Africa in 1885; he died in 1931, and he and his brother were buried at St Philip's Church in Caerdeon, north Wales.

The castle was then sold to General Aylmer's descendants Neville and Charles Eade. A medal engraved with an image of a bridge and the name of Thomas Jennison, the sixteenth-century builder, was found under the north wall of the castle grounds during road-widening work on Newton Lane in 1937–38. In the Second World War, during the Eades' ownership, the castle was used as a prisoner-of-war camp for 200 men including German and Italian officers, under the command of Major Rollin Holmes; huts to the east have been identified as the camp's possible site. Durham County Council bought the castle in 1950 and it became a girls' boarding school. It was listed Grade I on 6 June 1952. The Council sold it in 1981, after which it was renovated and opened as a hotel, latterly within the Best Western group.