Qualla
Before he painted Romantic subjects drawn from classical, biblical, literary, and contemporary sources, Turner specialized in topographical views. This work, commissioned by the third earl of Darlington, is one of Turner's most successful "house portraits." It is also one of the first works in which he fully exploits the dramatic potential of the sky. The earl, an avid sportsman who reportedly hunted six days a week, may have influenced Turner's rendering of the scene. When the painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1818, it included a mounted huntsman in the foreground. Turner subsequently painted over this figure after his work had been denounced as a "detestable fox-hunting scene." Raby Castle, a ca. 1380 structure, is located in County Durham, England.
Before he painted Romantic subjects drawn from classical, biblical, literary, and contemporary sources, Turner specialized in topographical views. This work, commissioned by the third earl of Darlington, is one of Turner's most successful "house portraits." It is also one of the first works in which he fully exploits the dramatic potential of the sky. The earl, an avid sportsman who reportedly hunted six days a week, may have influenced Turner's rendering of the scene. When the painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1818, it included a mounted huntsman in the foreground. Turner subsequently painted over this figure after his work had been denounced as a "detestable fox-hunting scene." Raby Castle, a ca. 1380 structure, is located in County Durham, England. — Photo: J. M. W. Turner | Public domain

Raby Castle

castlemedieval-historycountry-houseart-collectionwars-of-the-rosescounty-durham
4 min read

Cecily Neville gave birth to two kings within these walls. Edward IV and Richard III - both the white-rose victor of the Wars of the Roses and the most argued-over monarch in English history - came into the world at Raby, the family seat of the Nevilles deep in County Durham. The castle her ancestor John Neville built between roughly 1367 and 1390 still stands among 200 acres of deer park, nine towers along its perimeter, its irregular plan refusing the tidy geometries of later fashion. The deer that wander the grounds are descendants of the herd that watched her grow up.

The House of Neville

The Nevilles held Raby from the 13th century, summoned to Parliament as Barons of Raby from 1295 even though they carried no formal title at first. John Neville (1299-1335) joined Thomas, 2nd Earl of Lancaster's household, knitting the family into the Lancastrian orbit. By the late 1300s, the Nevilles rivalled the Percys of Northumberland - the two great northern dynasties, hereditary enemies, constantly jockeying for influence on the Scottish border. The castle they built reflected that power: a four-storey Neville Gateway in the west, a drawbridge (since replaced by a flagged causeway), a chemin de ronde where guards walked the parapets, and nine towers ringing the irregular bailey. The wealth came from sheep, lead, and the dale country around them; the architecture said that wealth out loud.

Rising in the Name of a Captive Queen

In 1569 Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmorland, walked into a trap of his own making. The Rising of the North was a Catholic-led plot to free Mary, Queen of Scots from her English captivity and restore the old religion. Charles and Thomas Percy raised their tenants and rode south. The rising failed within weeks. Charles fled into exile in the Low Countries; the Crown seized Raby and held it for forty-three years. The Nevilles never came back. In 1626 Sir Henry Vane the Elder bought the castle from the Crown along with neighbouring Barnard Castle. He preferred Raby's open setting to Barnard's cramped one, hemmed in by the town, and the Vanes have held it ever since - through Henry Vane the Younger (later briefly Governor of Massachusetts), the Earls of Darlington who became the Dukes of Cleveland, and the present Lords Barnard, who in 1964 inherited a castle that needed decades of patient restoration.

Halls Lined with Masters

The Vanes were collectors. Old masters and family portraits accumulated room by room - works by Luca Giordano, Anthony van Dyck, Joshua Reynolds and Peter Lely, capriccios by Marco and Sebastiano Ricci and Antonio Joli, a portrait of Oliver Cromwell by Robert Walker, Alexander Pope painted by Godfrey Kneller. The Small Drawing Room holds sporting paintings by Ben Marshall, Henry Bernard Chalon and Alfred Munnings - the family's hunting obsession turned into art. J.M.W. Turner painted Raby itself in 1817; that canvas now hangs in the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. In the 17th and 18th centuries the Vanes drove a carriageway clean through the castle, wrecking medieval fabric to ease the passage of guests, and the Earls of Darlington later added a Gothic entrance hall and an octagonal drawing room. Film crews have found the silhouette irresistible: Raby doubled for Tudor palaces in the 1998 Elizabeth, and stood in for the fictional Manhattan billionaire's seat in Billions in 2023. The Lake stood in for the Thames. The deer kept grazing.

From the Air

Coordinates 54.59092N, 1.80175W. Raby Castle sits about 1 mile north of the village of Staindrop in County Durham, on the southern edge of the North Pennines. From low altitude the nine-towered irregular plan is clearly distinguishable, surrounded by the 200-acre deer park and its lake. Best viewed at 1500-3000 ft AGL. Nearest aerodromes: Durham Tees Valley (EGNV) about 13 nm southeast, Newcastle (EGNT) about 26 nm northeast. The A688 passes immediately south. Bishop Auckland lies about 6 nm to the east.

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