Affeton Castle is a converted late-medieval gatehouse near East Worlington, Devon, England. It was formerly part of the now destroyed fortified manor house of Affeton, situated on the side of a valley of the Little Dart River. Built in 1434, the surrounding house was destroyed in the English Civil War of the 1640s, and by the early 19th century the gatehouse was in ruins. It was restored between 1868-69 by Sir George Stucley for use as a shooting-box; in 1956, it was converted to form the private home of Sir Dennis Stucley. The castle, approximately 60 feet (18 m) by 22 feet (6.7 m) in size, is protected under UK law as a Grade II* listed building.
History
Originally Affeton Castle formed the gatehouse of a large fortified manor house, built from grey rubble stone by the Stucley family in about 1434. The Stucley family acquired the Affeton estate when Hugh Stucley married the heiress Catherine de Affeton. The gatehouse measures approximately 60 feet (18 m) by 22 feet (6.7 m). It formed a major part of the defences of the house, and incorporates a tall arch, now partly filled in to form a smaller front door, through which persons and vehicles passed to gain access to the inner courtyard.
The gatehouse was restored in 1868-69 by Sir George Stucley – originally called George Buck, until he became the first of the Stucley baronets – to create a shooting-box for grouse shooting on the nearby Affeton Moor. The castle was inherited by the next three baronets, who lived at Moreton Hall.
The 4th Baronet, Sir Hugh Stucley, gave the castle to his son, Sir Dennis Stucley in 1947. In 1956, Moreton Hall was sold off, and Affeton Castle became Sir Dennis’s main residence; he installed the first bathrooms in the property. Sir Hugh Stucley now lives in the castle, which is not open to the public, unlike the family’s other larger residence at Hartland Abbey. He has added an extension housing a nursery wing and additional bedrooms.
Bibliography
- Emery, Anthony. (2006) Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500: Southern England. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-58132-5.
- Lauder, Rosemary. (2002) Devon Families. Tiverton, UK: Halsgrove. ISBN 9781841141404.
- Pettifer, Adrian. (2002) English Castles: A Guide by Counties. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. ISBN 978-0-85115-782-5.
- Stucley, Dennis. (1976) “A Devon Parish Lost, A new Home Discovered”, in Transactions of the Devonshire Association, no. 108, pp. 1–11.
- Vivian, J. L. (ed) (1895) The Visitations of the County of Devon: Comprising the Heralds’ Visitations of 1531, 1564 and 1620. Exeter, UK: H.S. Eland. OCLC 3674935.
Attribution
The text of this page was adapted from “Afferton Castle” on the English language website Wikipedia, as the version dated 9 August 2018, and accordingly the text of this page is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Principal editors have included Lobsterthermidor, Hchc2009, Lemurbaby and Boleyn, and the contributions of all editors can be found on the history tab of the Wikipedia article.
Photographs on this page are drawn from the Wikimedia and Cadw websites, as of 21 August 2018, and attributed and licensed as follows: “Affeton gatehouse500“, author Tony Dunlop, released under CC BY-NC 2.0.
