Torksey Castle

The country house was built by Sir Robert Jermyn in c. 1560. It may have been built as a waypoint for the Jermyn family's travels to York or as a gift to one of their sons. In 1645, the property was slighted during the English Civil War. Having been taken from the Royalist Jermyn family by Parliamentarians, it was burned by Royalist soldiers based at Newark. Very little of the structure remained. Though the Jermyn family retained control of the estate after the Civil War, the property was not restored, but continued to deteriorate. The remains of the buildings were scavenged for usable building supplies by residents of the area. Also, the hall was built quite close to the flood-prone River…

It is obvious from the materials and architectural features of the remaining structure that the building was constructed, at least in layout if not in ornament, to the latest Renaissance fashion. The lower or ground floor level is built of thin limestone blocks, is very plain and has small mullioned windows, meaning it was probably used as the domestic area of the house, where the servants would have worked, but probably not slept. The upper level is built in red brick in English bond and most probably constitutes a piano nobile, a principle still very much new in Northern Europe at the time. Brick at the time, although having been used previously, had rarely been in use in British secular…