Stokesay Castle, found at Stokesay, a mile south of the city of Craven Arms, in southern Shropshire, is the oldest fortified estate house in Britain , going back to the late 13th century.It is at present in the hands of English Heritage. It's a Grade I listed building.
The History of Stokesay Castle:-
Notwithstanding its present name, Stokesay wasn't called a castle before the sixteenth century, and is actually a fortified estate house.The origins of this Stoke, or "dairy farm", return to the Conquest, when the estate was a part of the huge holdings in the West of Britain granted to the family of Lacy.
Intensive tree-ring dating of structural timbers shows that just about all of the present structure was finished before 1291, the date of Edward I's license to fortify the place, which stands in the Welsh Marches, the western borderland of the Norman domain at that point.The oldest parts of the building are the lower 2 storeys of the north tower, started about 1240. The great slate-roofed hall, thirty-four feet high, with 4 cross-gables, was added in the 1280s and is a really rare survival, having been just about untouched since ; there is not any fireside, just the central open octagonal hearth.
The roofs double curved collar braces and collar beams rest on masonry corbels in the walling, an early example of creativity in roofing bigger buildings. The first wooden staircase round 2 sides of the walls, giving access to the north tower, also remains to this day. The solar, an higher living room in the cross-wing, which gave a rather more personal space in which to pull back from the company in the hall, is accessible from an exterior timber step sheltered by its own roof and contains Elizabethan oak panelling and a luxurious fireside.
The South Tower has no direct access through any other structure : its use was solely defensive. The castles most unusual feature is the timber-framed residence built onto the exterior of the walls. The Elizabethan gatehouse, added in to the 16th century, is also half-timbered and is decorated with carvings. The inside of the castle contains a variety of rare wall paintings from the Medieval period.
This gradual development of the design was achieved under ten successive generations of descendants of Laurence of Ludlow who lived in the building till the reign of Charles I. During King Charles I reign it came into the possession of the Craven family and was employed as a supply base for the King's forces in the area, based in strength at close by Ludlow Castle in the initial stages of the English Civil War.