Approaching Raby Castle
 The
approach to the castle is particularly beautiful as its towers and
turrets appear and disappear amongst the trees in the 200 acre surrounding
parkland with its ornamental lakes and herds of deer.
Most of the building is 14th century, being granted a licence
to crenellate from the Bishop of Durham in 1378, with fragments
said to date back to the 11th century.
Around the
Castle Towers
 The
14th century Gatehouse, with its stone figures standing on
the battlements, once guarded a drawbridge over the now dry Castle
moat which was drained in the 18th century. Beyond stands Clifford's
Tower, with some original Edward III windows and solid 10ft
thick walls.
A curtain
wall, with early leaded windows and arrow loops, leads to the Kitchen
Tower, surmounted by a distinctive octagonal lantern heightened
by John Carr in the 18th century.
 On
the west front, next to Joan's Tower, is the Nevill Gateway,
with its obliquely placed flanking towers and overhead machicolations
through which boiling water or oil could be poured on to the heads
of attackers. Along its barrel vaulted passage is a door on which
battering ram marks can still be seen today.
 The
Nevill Gateway is the principal entrance to the Castle, which allowed
horse-drawn carriages into the courtyard, through the Entrance Hall
and out through the Chapel Tower standing alongside Mount
Raskelf on the east front.
 At
the south east corner of the Castle stands the unusual five-sided
Bulmer's Tower, named after the Norman Knight Bertram de
Bulmer, its base dating from the 11th century. Designed to provide
the best defensive solution at that point, it is unique in England,
the only other tower of this shape being in Denmark.
The south front, overlooking
the Castle lakes, is the most altered of the exterior fronts. In
the 19th century, Architect William Burn altered a former round
tower with an impressive extension which accommodates the Octagon
Drawing Room.
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