Building Wentworth
13th March 2025
Building Wentworth
Wentworth Castle Gardens, boasts 26 listed buildings and monuments located in the gardens and across the wider parkland and estate, but have you ever wondered who built them and why? Throughout March and April there is a range of activities that explores this theme.
Over the last 350 years, the owners of Wentworth Castle Gardens have added, altered and restored buildings around the estate to reflect their personal interests and lifestyle. On 19 March, a brand new Step into History walk, developed especially for our Building Wentworth season, will take a route around the formal gardens and explores the ambitions and achievements of some of the different builders of Wentworth. It will include a look at the architecture of Stainborough Castle, the Sun monument and the Victorian Conservatory.
Victorian conservatory View from the castle tower
The return of the popular Parkland Monuments Walk will head out into the parkland, taking in the Duke of Argyll monument, the Rotunda, the Queen Anne obelisk and the Serpentine and Palladian bridges. Over a distance of approximately 4km, this walk in the company of a knowledgeable volunteer, will focus on the way in which Thomas and William Wentworth shaped the wider estate in the 1700s. With a choice of Friday 21 March or Friday 25 April dates, the walk includes the opportunity to look inside the rarely opened Rotunda.
Palladian bridge Rotunda
For family explorers, a Building Wentworth self-led activity can be picked up at reception. This activity enables participants to become detectives and to discover, at their own pace, the extensive use of the circle shape incorporated into many of the built and natural structures; a tradition which continues in more modern aspects of the gardens to this day.
Castle circles
The Research and Archive team will be hosting an Open Archives event on Tuesday 25 March, where plans and documents will be available to view. The team, always on the lookout for new research leads, will also be hoping for some stories and anecdotes to be brought in by visitors.
The final Building Wentworth event of March is a bookable tour offering exclusive access to the walled garden and recently restored (external) Orangery an area not usually open to the public. Whilst examining the early history of this area, with its stove walls and garden house, the tour provides an opportunity to contemplate the future use for this space when funds are available to develop it.
Working with our partners, Northern College, the month of April begins with bookable tours of the mansion and ends on 24 April with a Talk, Tea and Treat event in which master plasterer, Jeff Orton, reveals a fascinating insight into the history of traditional plasterwork with reference to the fine examples of this craft within the mansion.
In the mid-1700s, William Wentworth, a talented amateur architect, had plenty of opportunity to indulge his passion as he developed the estate. We are providing an opportunity for you to do the same! If you’ve ever wanted to be an architect or builder this is a chance to put creative skills to the test in some junk modelling workshops, to be held at the beginning of the school holiday period. These bookable workshops will use recycled materials to recreate some of Wentworth Castle Gardens most famous monuments.
The building doesn’t stop for Easter! The popular Easter egg trail has been extended this year and runs from 11 – 21 April. The gardens trail will have ten locations with brand new trail points that combine hands-on building themed activities as well as the return of family favourites like bunny hoopla.
The annal showstopping spring display of Camellia Williamsii, Rhododendron and Magnolias species, all with National Collections status, will form an increasingly colourful backdrop for all of these activities.
Magnolias
For more information, please visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/yorkshire/wentworth-castle-gardens/events
Images credit Steve Bradley
