Eastnor Castle: A Journey from Medieval Fortress to Fairytale Castle

Overview

Built between 1810 and 1824 to resemble a medieval fortress, Eastnor Castle has evolved through extensive 19th-century decorative transformations and a 20th-century revival by the Hervey-Bathurst family, now serving as a restored family home renowned for its 300-acre deer park and appearances in HBO's "Succession."

History

Eastnor Castle is a proper fairytale castle, with battlements and suits of armour. The house was built by John Somers Cocks, 2nd Baron Somers and the architect Robert Smirke, later designer of the British Museum, between 1810 and 1824. The idea was to build a castle that gave the impression of a medieval fortress guarding the Welsh borders, an assertion of power by Lord Somers in the wake of the French Revolution. In the first 18 months of the build, 4,000 tons of stone, 16,000 tons of mortar, and 600 tons of wood were used for Eastnor. In 1849, another John Somers Cocks, 2nd Earl Somers, commissioned Augustus Pugin, the well- known designer of the Palace of Westminster interiors, to decorate the drawing room at Eastnor in the Gothic Revival style. His son Charles Somers Cockes, 3rd Earl Somers went a step further, doing more decorative work at Eastnor in the 1860s and 1870s, the result being a house that represents three styles of 19th century domestic interior taste. When Arthur Somers Cocks, 6th Baron Somers inherited the estate in 1920, much of the estate surrounding Eastnor had been sold, and the collection split up among family members. Appointed Governor of Victoria in 1926, he moved to Australia with his family. Five years later, on his return home, he set about redecorating some of the rooms and installing rudimentary central heating. Eastnor was left empty during the Second World War and available for requisition, but the government never took the family up on it, and after the war his wife Daisy returned to the castle where she lived in the servants’ wing in reduced circumstances following payment of the enormous death duties that her husband’s death in 1944 incurred. The castle began to come back to life when in 1949 the Hon. Elizabeth Somers Cocks and her husband Benjamin Hervey-Bathurst, parents of the incumbent custodian James, took over Eastnor. Restoring and renovating the house, they made it back into a comfortable family home, which James Hervey-Bathurst took on in 1988.

Don’t go home without seeing

The Eastnor Obelisk, built in 1812 and accessible from both the Malvern Hills and from the deer park.

Drop by…

The Seven Stars in Ledbury, one of the oldest local pubs.

Need another local heritage fix?

Stop in at Little Malvern Court, the 15th century prior’s hall five miles away.

Our favourite line

‘Eastnor spent most of the 20th century being told it was too ugly, too big and too costly to survive… Today, in the hands of the Hervey-Bathurst family, it is one of the most convincing works of grand house restoration’ – Simon Jenkins, 2004