The Beginning ....
The earliest known castle in Kimbolton, a wooden motte
and bailey castle, dating from Norman times, was not on
the present site. All that remains is a low mound, surrounded
by a ditch and covered with trees, which can be seen by
looking up the hill from the Duchess's Walk.
Geoffrey Fitzpiers
Around 1200, the local Lord of the Manor was Geoffrey
Fitzpiers, Earl of Essex. He was given permission by King
John to hold a fair and market in Kimbolton, (the origin
of the modern Statute Fair). The High Street was laid
out as a market place, with the existing church at one
end and a new castle, (probably a fortified manor house),
at the other, on the site of the present castle. Nothing
of this early castle has survived.
The Middle Ages
The Castle changed hands several times, and in the mid-15th
century extensive building work on the inner courtyard
was carried out for Ann Stafford, widow of the Duke of
Buckingham.
Katherine of Aragon
By the 1520s the Castle belonged to the Wingfield
family,
who had it rebuilt as a Tudor manor house. Parts of this
building can still be seen, behind a glass panel in the
wall of the Red Room and especially in the corridor near
the Chapel.
After her divorce from Henry VIII, Katherine of Aragon
arrived at Kimbolton in May 1534. She spent the last months
of her life as a semi-prisoner in her rooms in the south-west
corner of the Castle, attended by a few loyal servants.
We can only guess what the rooms looked like at the time:
their present appearance dates from the 18th century.
When Katherine of Aragon died in January 1536, probably
from cancer, her body was carried in procession to the
Abbey (now Cathedral) at Peterborough for burial. Of course,
she is said to haunt the Castle.
Sir John Popham
Sir John Popham, after whom the Popham Gallery above
the Chapel is named, is believed to have lived in the
Castle around 1600, and his portrait now hangs in the
Queen's Room. After a colourful early life, when he is
said to have been a highwayman, he became Lord Chief Justice
and is best remembered as the judge at the trial of Guy
Fawkes. Local legend claims that he threw his baby daughter
to her death from a window overlooking the courtyard,
and he is, not surprisingly, the subject of several Kimbolton
ghost stories.
Edward Montagu
In 1615 the Castle was bought by Sir Henry Montagu, whose
portrait can be seen in the Saloon, and underwent yet
more rebuilding. Sir Henry's descendants owned the Castle
until 1950, when it was bought by Kimbolton School. Sir
Henry became the 1st Earl of Manchester, and his son,
Edward, the 2nd Earl, was one of the Castle's most famous
inhabitants. He was a leading Parliamentarian and Oliver
Cromwell's superior officer during the early part of the
Civil War. A famous portrait of him, by Sir Peter Lely,
hangs above the fireplace in the Saloon.
The Great Rebuilding
The Castle in its present form dates almost entirely
from 1690 to 1720, when it was largely rebuilt on the
orders of Charles Edward Montagu (4th Earl), who was to
become 1st Duke of Manchester in 1719. Between 1690 and
1695, the courtyard was rebuilt and the main staircase
added. The Great Hall of the old Castle was divided to
make two rooms, the White Hall and the Red Room. The work
was carried out by a local builder called William Coleman,
probably to designs by the Kings Lynn architect Henry
Bell.
Building work resumed in 1707, after the south-east corner
of the Castle (the site of the Green Room) collapsed.
Two of the best-known architects of that time, Sir John
Vanbrugh and his assistant Nicholas Hawksmoor, were called
in to redesign the whole of the
South Front. Although
Vanbrugh wanted to rebuild the Castle in the then-fashionable
classical style, he was anxious to 'give it something
of the Castle Air' because of its long history as a fortified
manor house: hence the battlements.
Vanbrugh soon persuaded the Earl to let him reface the
other three sides of the Castle in a similar style. Vanbrugh's
main State Room was the Saloon, with, on one side, the
State Bedchamber (now the Headmaster's study) and its
adjoining Boudoir, on the site of Katherine of Aragon's
rooms, and, on the other side, the Green Drawing Room.
Work was also carried out on the Chapel and the Main Staircase.
Whether or not Vanbrugh designed the portico on the east
side of the Castle is uncertain.
In 1708, the Earl of Manchester brought over to England
the Venetian painter Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini to decorate
the newly-built rooms. His most important paintings can
be seen on the wall and ceilings of the Main Staircase.
In particular, the small musicians' gallery, on the upper
flight of stairs, is regarded as one of the finest wall-paintings
in England.
Other work by Pellegrini includes the Chapel wall-paintings,
the ceiling of the Boudoir and a portrait of the Earl's
children in the White Hall.
Robert Adam
Another famous architect who worked at Kimbolton was
Robert Adam, who designed the Gatehouse (built about 1764),
including the Castle brew house, now the School Shop,
and the Castle laundry, now the Bursary. Adam also drew
up plans for several garden buildings, including an orangery,
but these were never carried out. At the same time the
formal layout of the grounds was changed, and the Iron
Gates moved to their present position.
The Victorians
In the 19th Century, an extra storey of attic rooms was
added on the north side of the Castle. The Mews, which
now house the Kimbolton School Dining Hall and Music School,
were built to provide stables for the Castle. On the east
side, the avenue of Wellingtonias on either side of the
Mall was planted.
The Last Century
During World War II, the Castle was used by the Royal
Army Medical Corps. In 1950, the 10th Duke of Manchester,
who was living in Kenya, sold the Castle and many of the
family portraits to Kimbolton School, then housed in what
is now the Preparatory Department. Since that time, the
State Rooms have been restored and redecorated and other
parts of the Castle adapted to meet the changing needs
of the School community.
