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4 unusual facts about Maxstoke Castle


Dilke baronets

The Dilke family is descended from Fisher Dilke, son of Thomas Dilke, of Maxstoke Castle, who married Sybil Wentworth.

Maxstoke Castle

Amongst the antiquities there is a 15th-century chair upon which Henry VII was crowned after the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, a table owned by Sir Everard Digby (cousin to the Digbys of Coleshill) around which the Gunpowder Plot was planned in 1605, and a 'Whispering Door' (two doors with a common jamb) brought from Kenilworth Castle.

It was built by Sir William de Clinton, 1st Earl of Huntingdon, in 1345 to a rectangular plan, with octagonal towers at each angle, a gatehouse on the east, and a residential range on the west, the whole surrounded by a broad moat.

Thomas Malory

At one point, he was arrested and imprisoned in Maxstoke Castle, but he escaped, swam the moat, and returned to Newbold Revel.


William de Clinton, 1st Earl of Huntingdon

William de Clinton, 1st Earl of Huntingdon (1304–1354) and Lord High Admiral, was the younger son of John de Clinton, 1st Baron Clinton (d.1312/13) of Maxstoke Castle, Warwickshire, and Ida De Odingsells who was the granddaughter of Ida II Longespee.


see also