HERSTMONCEUX CASTLE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Marketing Coordinator
- Marketing Enquiries
Job Titles:
- Head of Customer Services
When Lowther first came to Herstmonceux, very little of the interior buildings had survived. He soon put in hand plans to restore the castle as a dwelling. Much of the restoration work is said to have followed his own design, but Lowther also employed a little-known architect named Cecil Perkins. The building work was carried out by local craftsmen and by June 1912 most of the south front had been repaired and re-roofed. Before the work could go much further, however, the First World War intervened.
In 1992, Dr. Bader, a former student at Queen's University, Canada and now the owner of Herstmonceux Castle, telephoned the Principal of the university, to ask if a castle might fit into the university's plans for the future, perhaps as an international study centre. The Board of Trustees wanted to provide international experience to members of the Queen's community and students from around the world. They endorsed the purchase of Herstmonceux Castle. The gift would allow for the purchase of the estate, as well as provide a significant contribution towards the cost of renovating.
Colonel Lowther died in 1929. The next owner, Sir Paul Latham, Baronet, M.P., had perhaps the greatest influence on the construction of the castle since its original plan was conceived by Sir Roger Fiennes. Latham continued with Lowther's restoration plan but with one notable difference in design: Whereas Lowther had intended a "mediaeval castle" effect with flat roofs and with battlements silhouetted against the sky, Sir Paul returned to the original design of having high pitched roofs rising above the crenellations.
After his father's death, Roger's son Richard inherited the castle and married Joan Dacre, gaining large estates and properties in the north of England. On the death of Joan's grand-father, Richard laid claim to the title of Lord Dacre.
Sir Thomas Lennard, Lord Dacre, was the last descendant of a long line of members of the Monceux, Fiennes and Lennard families to inherit Herstmonceux. Thomas was in such trouble that he had to petition Parliament for permission to sell the family home at Herstmonceux in order to pay off his debts. In 1708 Thomas sold Herstmonceux estate to a solicitor, Mr George Naylor of Lincoln's Inn, for £38,215.
Thomas's grandson and namesake became the third Lord Dacre at the tender age of seventeen. One night when he was 25 years old, Thomas apparently decided to go poaching with some friends on land belonging to Sir Nicholas Pelham of Laughton. They were confronted by three of Pelham's servants and, in a struggle that ensued, one of the gamekeepers, John Busbridge, was fatally wounded and died two days later. Following the execution of Sir Thomas, the Fiennes family honours and titles were forfeit to the king. Thomas's family, the Lady Dacre and their three young children must have found life difficult, and they may have been reduced at this point to living in a small part of the castle.