Wentworth Castle

Wentworth Castle is a grade-I listed country house, the former seat of the Earls of Strafford, at Stainborough, near Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. It is now home to the Northern College for Residential and Community Education. An older house existed on the estate, then called Stainborough, when it was purchased by Thomas Wentworth, Baron Raby (later Earl of Strafford), in 1708. It was still called Stainborough in Jan Kip's engraved bird's-eye view of parterres and avenues, 1714, and in the first edition of Vitruvius Britannicus, 1715. The name was changed in 1731. The original name survives in the form of Stainborough Castle, a sham ruin constructed as a garden folly on the estate. The estate was in the care of the Wentworth Castle Heritage Trust from 2001 to June 2019 and was open to the public year-round seven days a week. Despite massive restoration, the castle gardens were closed to the public in 2017 amidst a funding crisis. In September 2018 it was announced that the National Trust planned to enter into a new partnership with Northern College and Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council to reopen the gardens and parkland to the public. The gardens and parkland reopened to the public on 8 June 2019.