Qualla: Okehampton Castle

Okehampton Castle: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Underlying map, Edward H. Young (died 1932); additional detail and work by hchc2009, Public domain. From the road north of the keep, Okehampton Castle still wears its medieval war face: narrow window slits, tall walls, defensive posture. Walk around to the south, however, and a different building reveals itself. Wide windows. Low walls. Lodgings that opened onto a hunting park large enough to swallow whole villages. The same fortress was performing two roles at once, and the trick was deliberate. The Courtenay family wanted travelers to see a stronghold from one side and an English country estate from the other, two centuries before that idea even had a name.

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Image: Underlying map, Edward H. Young (died 1932); additional detail and work by hchc2009 | Public domain

Okehampton Castle: A castle with two faces

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michael Garlick, CC BY-SA 2.0. When the Redvers line ran out in 1297, Hugh de Courtenay inherited Okehampton along with the title of Earl of Devon. His main seat sat at Tiverton, so Okehampton became something rarer: a country retreat for the medieval rich. He and his son poured money into the conversion. The ...

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Image: Michael Garlick | CC BY-SA 2.0

Okehampton Castle: Clearing the land for status

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hchc2009, CC BY-SA 3.0. The deer park that made those southern views possible cost the surrounding countryside dearly. To create 690 hectares of enclosed hunting ground, the Courtenays cleared away whole settlements of long houses, hamlets that had grown up during the warmer climate of the 12th and earl...

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Image: Hchc2009 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Okehampton Castle: The artists arrive

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Mike Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0. By the 18th century the castle was a ruin, and that turned out to be its second career. Devon's landscape painters discovered Okehampton just as the Sublime and the Picturesque became fashionable, and they could not get enough of it. Richard Wilson painted the keep silhouetted ag...

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Image: Mike Smith | CC BY-SA 2.0

Okehampton Castle: Lady Howard's coach

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit john spivey, CC BY-SA 2.0. Every good Devon ruin needs a ghost, and Okehampton has one of the best. Legend says the castle is haunted by Lady Howard, a 17th-century noblewoman accused of murdering three husbands and two of her children. Her phantom coach is built from the bones of her victims, drawn by hor...

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Image: john spivey | CC BY-SA 2.0

Okehampton Castle: Saved by a Sydney

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Frederick John Widgery, Public domain. By the time Sydney Simmons bought the castle in the early 20th century, vegetation had nearly buried it. Between 1911 and 1913 he cleared the growth and stabilized the stonework, then passed the property to the Okehampton Castle Trust in 1917. The Ministry of Works took over in 1...

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Image: Frederick John Widgery | Public domain