May 23, 2024 to Nov. 3, 2024
50th Anniversary Year
This year, celebrate a significant milestone at Sudeley Castle with a new exhibition and film commemorating the 50-year tenure of its longest-serving Chatelaine, Lady Ashcombe. Since 1974, Lady Ashcombe has been a pivotal figure in promoting Sudeley Castle and English Heritage. The exhibition invites you to step back in time, exploring key moments and cherished memories from the 1960s through to the present day. Discover the rich tapestry of history that has shaped Sudeley Castle over the decades and gain insight into the impactful role Lady Ashcombe has played in its preservation and prominence. Join us to delve into the remarkable journey of Lady Ashcombe and the enduring charm of Sudeley Castle.
BOOK A VISIT
- House and Gardens Book now
Event open to holders of House and Gardens, tickets between May 23, 2024 and Nov. 3, 2024
Included with admission

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SUDELEY CASTLE
Enjoy an afternoon tea served by ladies-in-waiting, visit the tomb of Katherine Parr, and marvel at a stunning exhibition of Tudor costumes.
Sudeley Castle
The origins of Sudeley Castle date back to at least the 11th century, when it was formed of a manor house set in a deer park, given as a gift from the Saxon king Æthelred the Unready to his daughter Goda on her wedding day in 1024. Miraculously, the family held on to Sudeley after the Norman Conquest, where they stayed put for the next 400 years.
In 1443, Lord High Treasurer of England Ralph Boteler began work on a new castle at Sudeley, building a house with a double courtyard – an outer layer for his staff, and the inner court for his family. When Boteler was compelled to sell Sudeley in 1469, the house passed to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, later Richard III, who built the large banqueting house at the castle, a fashionable ground floor entertaining space. After Richard III’s death at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, Sudeley passed to Henry VII. His son Henry VIII stayed at Sudeley in 1535 with his second wife Anne Boleyn, and after his death in 1547 his sixth wife Catherine Parr married the courtier Thomas Seymour, with whom she moved to Sudeley with her retinue. Seymour had done it up especially for her, but his wife died there in 1548, and was buried in the grounds.
The house soon passed into the hands of the Brydges family, who thrice hosted Elizabeth I, remodelling the castle in the 1560s and 1570s, and creating the functional building lived in by the custodians today. In 1592, the Brydges threw a magnificent three-day party for the queen, landscaping the grounds in preparation, and almost bankrupting themselves in the process. During the Civil War, Charles I used Sudeley as a base in Gloucestershire; at the end of the war, the house was dismantled and left for dead, the family unable to repair it. Sudeley spent the next 200 years neglected and ruined until 1837, when glove makers John and William Dent bought the house and restored it, leaving part of it in picturesque ruins, and filling it with art and antiques. The Dent family continued to look after Sudeley right up until the Second World War, during which the house was used as storage by the Tate, and a prisoner of war camp was located in the grounds.
The house’s current custodian Elizabeth, Lady Ashcombe, came to Sudeley in 1962 after her marriage to Mark Dent-Brocklehurst. In 1970, the Dent-Brocklehursts opened Sudeley to the public, but two years later Mark died, leaving his wife to manage Sudeley alone. She remarried to Harry Cubitt, 4th Baron Ashcombe in 1979, and together they ran the house until his death in 2013.
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