Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire

                    

Images: Sudeley castle wing with late medieval dungeon tower; Tudor wing; ruins of Richard III-era hall; chapel exterior; chapel’s 19th century tomb for Katherine Parr (photos: C.A. Stanford)

Acquired: 1509 (by inheritance)

The castle was primarily of late fifteenth-century work and came into Crown hands under Richard III. It had two courtyards surrounded by a moat. It was apparently not very spacious, because when Henry and Anne Boleyn visited during their 1535 progress, some of the court attendants had to stay at nearby Winchcombe. Later after Henry’s death, Sudeley became the home of Catherine Parr, his last wife. She is buried in the church of St. Mary on the castle grounds.

The property was rebuilt in the late sixteenth century and again in the nineteenth. It remains a residence in private hands, but parts are open to the public.