page_title: Hylton Castle
section_title: 18th century
hierarchical_section_title: Hylton Castle / History / 18th century
caption_attribution_description: English: Hylton Castle
context_page_description: Hylton Castle is a stone castle in the North Hylton area of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England. Originally built from wood by the Hilton family shortly after the Norman Conquest in 1066, it was later rebuilt in stone in the late 14th to early 15th century. The castle underwent major changes to its interior and exterior in the 18th century and it remained the principal seat of the Hylton family until the death of the last Baron in 1746. It was then Gothicised but neglected until 1812, when it was revitalised by a new owner. Standing empty again until the 1840s, it was briefly used as a school until it was purchased again in 1862. The site passed to a local coal company in the early 20th century and was taken over by the state in 1950.
  One of the castle's main features is the range of heraldic devices found mainly on the west façade, which have been retained from the castle's original construction. They depict the coats of arms belonging to local gentry and peers of the late 14th to early 15th centuries and provide an approximate date of the castle's reconstruction from wood to stone.
context_section_description: Early in the 18th century, John Hylton (died 1712), the second son of Henry Hylton, de jure 16th Baron Hylton, gutted the interior to form a three-storeyed block (one room on each floor). He also inserted large, alternating, pedimented sash windows in the Italianate style and added a three-storeyed north wing to the castle (as seen in Bucks' engraving of 1728). A doorway to the new wing was added and approached by a semi-circular staircase. Above the doorway was a coat of arms, believed to be the one created to commemorate the marriage between John Hylton and his wife, Dorothy Musgrave. It is now located above the doorway to The Golden Lion Inn at South Hylton, on the opposite side of the River Wear.
  After 1728, Hylton's second son, John Hylton, de jure 18th Baron Hylton added a complementary south wing (its foundation wall still extant), crenellations to both wings and removed the door on the north wing. He also changed the circular bartizan on the north end of the west front, to an octagonal turret and removed the portcullis from the west entrance.
  When the 18th and last "baron" died without male heirs in 1746, the castle passed to his nephew, Sir Richard Musgrave, Bt, who took the name of Hylton. It was sold by a private bill (23 Geo. II c.21) in 1749. The new owner was to be a Mr. Wogan who returned from the East Indies to buy the castle for £30,550 (£3.7 million in 2007), but the sale never went through. It was instead bought by Lady Bowes, the widow of Sir George Bowes of Streatlam and Gibside in County Durham. No record of her, or any of her family, ever taking up residence exists and the castle later passed to her grandson, John Bowes, 10th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne. At this time, a stucco decoration (long since disappeared) to the wine and drawing rooms was added by Pietro La Francini, who worked for Daniel Garrett (who had worked for Lady Bowes on Gibside Banqueting House). William Howitt's Visits to Remarkable Places (1842) notes the rooms had "stuccoed ceilings, with figures, busts on the walls, and one large scene which seemed to be Venus and Cupid, Apollo fiddling to the gods, Minerva in her helmet, and an old king". Garrett probably designed the Gothic porch installed in the west entrance and the Gothic screen and single-storey, bow-fronted rooms installed to close off the east entrance.
caption: Hylton Castle and St Catherine's Chapel – Samuel and Nathaniel Buck, 1728
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