When we visit Simon’s family in Yorkshire we try and find some time to explore the local area. During a trip in October we visited Bolsover Castle. Apologies that this is a little reminiscent rather than time accurate.

Bolsover is a Stuart era castle set in the beautiful countryside of Derbyshire. The castle was originally founded in the 11th century by one of William the Conquerer’s Knights. It was left to ruin from the 14th century and work began on the grounds again in 1612 by Sir Charles Cavendish. The castle has been in the care of English Heritage since 1984 and provided an excellent local tourist attraction that none of us had been to before.

Our tour started in the Riding House. William, Charles Cavendish’s son, trained horses for dressage. The Riding House at Bolsover is one of the oldest in the country to remain intact.

Our next stop was to the Terrace Range. The Terrace Range was built by William Cavendish in the 1630’s. His aim was to build banqueting halls fit for royalty. As we walked around we could see the site of the old kitchens and it was easy to imagine what these ruins used to look like in their glory days. It was also a great spot for a bit of photography.

After walking around outside for long enough, it was pretty chilly, we entered the main attraction the Little Castle Keep. On first glance, the Little Castle looks like a Keep fit for providing protection during times of war, but on closer inspection it wasn’t really fit for purpose at all. A couple of problems, to name only a few, was that the windows were large and would have been easy targets and that the doors were easily accessible on ground level. It would appear as though the Little Castle was really built as an elaborate family house rather than a Keep.

We had a lovely time walking around looking at all the elaborate furnishings and listening to the audio guide. I won’t lie, history is not my favourite pastime, but I find as long as I just look and take it in, rather than try and remember it all, I can enjoy an explore around an old English site.

One of my favourite parts, of our time at Bolsover, was the wall walk around the Fountain Gardens.

We had a lovely day and will definitely aim to visit more local attractions whilst visiting Wiltshire and Yorkshire in the future. A benefit of Bolsover is that there’s a Wetherspoons next door. A perfect place to finish our trip.