Less from 10 minutes from where we live is Raby Castle. Dating back to (mostly) the 14th century, the castle is still in excellent condition with beautifully maintained grounds and gardens.
The castle frequently runs special events like car shows, outdoor movie nights and more, so Shae and I recently decided to get a membership. Rather than getting a Raby Castle membership though, we got a Historic Houses membership. The price was very similar and includes access to Raby Castle, but it also gives us access to 100+ other historic houses around the country; more about that later.
We recently visited Raby Castle with my parents where we explored some of the grounds and went inside the castle itself, then returned with our dog Truffles a week or two later. Dogs are allowed on the grounds and in the gardens at Raby Castle, but not inside the castle itself which is why we left her at home during that first visit.
We’ll definitely be making frequent trips to Raby; here’s why.
Arriving At Raby
When you arrive at Raby Castle, you’ll find a long parking lot split into sections for 16-20 cars. The entrance to the castle and gardens is towards the far end, so it’s best to park as far down as you can provided there’s space.
There’s a ticket booth at the end of the parking lot. The first time we visited we showed our temporary online Historic Houses membership cards and they provided our tickets. On our second visit the booth was closed; there’s a separate ticket booth inside the grounds (the Round House), so you can get your tickets there.
We were provided with a map of the castle grounds showing how it’s laid out.
Raby Castle Grounds
The weather wasn’t great the first time we visited with my parents. Rain was forecast, but it hadn’t really started drizzling yet and so we decided to take a look around outside first.
You enter into a stepped garden area…
…then the gardens continue as you head towards the castle. There are more extensive gardens that we haven’t gotten around to checking out yet, so I’m sure we’ll explore those on future visits.
The gardens and grounds are extremely well maintained, with lots of colorful flowers on display when we’ve visited.
The Raby Castle estate covers more than 200 acres. Much of that land is a deer park and there’s no shortage of them as you wander around. Particularly interestingly, they appear to have white deer which I’d never seen before and are apparently quite rare.
If you like wildlife photography, this would be a great place to enjoy that. All these photos were taken with my phone, so with a proper zoom lens I imagine you could get some incredible photos.
As you take the paved path towards the castle, if you head off to the right before you reach it you’ll come to the High Pond and Low Pond. The castle used to have a moat but it was subsequently drained, with the ponds being created as a result in the mid-1700s.
There’s a trail circling the High Pond which we walked around, before walking up a gentle hill to check out the small temple that’s on the grounds.
The pond that’s closest to the castle is the Low Pond which provides a stunning scene with the castle behind it.
As I mentioned earlier, dogs aren’t allowed inside the castle building itself, but they can go pretty much everywhere else on the grounds. Just be sure to keep them on a leash, especially with all the deer that are around.
With so many acres to walk around and different sniffs to get, your dog will love it!
Raby Castle Exterior
When visiting the castle itself, you enter through the gatehouse which was built in the 1300s and has a couple of stone knights standing guard above.
Once through the gates, we wandered around the outside of the building before heading inside. The castle buildings and towers were built at different times, although most were constructed from 1367-1390.
To get into the castle building, you walk through Nevill Gateway, named after the former owners of the castle for 200 years.
That leads you into a courtyard where you can look up at the castle’s keep.
Raby Castle Interior
You’ll then see the entrance off to the right. The first part of the experience can be found in the housekeeper’s sitting room. In here, a seven minute film about the history of the castle plays on a loop.
One of the things we learned is that the name Raby is thought to date back 1,000 years to the reign of King Canute. ‘Ra’ was an old English word meaning boundary, while ‘Bi’ meant settlement.
The castle was owned by the Neville family from the 1300s through to 1569. Charles Neville participated in The Rising of the North; this was done to try to topple Queen Elizabeth I and install Mary Queen of Scots on the throne instead. This effort wasn’t successful and Charles Neville fled the country and ended up in continental Europe. After that, the Crown seized everything that the Neville family owned which included Raby Castle.
This room also featured a couple of cabinets containing items from the castle’s history, including a photo of a former housekeeper.
The hallway then led us past the butler’s pantry.
There was some kind of contraption near the room entrance, but we were unsure of its use. We each speculated what we thought it was for. It looked to me like it had some kind of electronic connectors, so I figured it was perhaps some kind of telegraph or perhaps an early type of telephone.
It turns out we were all wrong. Shae asked a volunteer about it later on during our visit and they advised it was a knife sharpener.
After walking past what appeared to be a cloakroom…
…we arrived in the small drawing room which featured lots of art on its walls and a beautiful candelabra above.
Next to where we were standing was an ornate-looking gold clock. This is a Janus clock because it has two faces (the Roman god Janus is often depicted as having two faces). The clock dates back to 1861 and was bought at the Paris Expo.
The next room was the library and had a distinctive Chinese influence on its decor.
From the library you head into the ante-library.
The octagon drawing room after that was the most opulent-feeling of all the rooms we visited in the castle.
Even that room’s gold wall coverings were made of silk.
The dining room was next which also featured a lot of the castle’s artwork. The room was built at same time as both the ante-library and the octagon drawing room as part of an extension of the castle. The extension took about 10 years to complete and was finished in 1848.
The dining table in the center of the room is long, but it can get longer. That’s because it can be extended to seat up to 30 people, rather than the 12 place settings in the photo below.
Something that I appreciated about Raby Castle is that there’s a clear route through the castle. When visiting Pembroke Castle in Wales recently, it was like a Choose Your Own Adventure situation where you could take any route around. That means we probably missed some parts of that castle, but that’s not really possible at Raby.
The next part of the route took us into the entrance hall. While Raby Castle is known for its extensive collection of artwork, one of my favorite wall adornments was the display below. This was created using Brown Bess muskets dating back to 1722. These types of guns took about 90 seconds to reload and were used by the Durham militia – which later became the Durham Light Infantry – to protect the area from the French and Scottish.
The entrance hall is also home to the fancy-looking Raby stagecoach which looks like it’s straight out of Cinderella.
The self-guided tour continued upstairs, walking up Bulmer’s staircase. At the bottom of the stairwell there was an extremely old-looking tapestry.
Seeing as this is a castle dating back 650+ years, there’s no elevator. That means anyone with mobility issues might not be able to tour upstairs. To accommodate that, the castle helpfully has a computer that visitors can use which has interactive displays of the upstairs rooms.
The first couple of rooms upstairs were bedrooms.
We then entered the lengthy Barons’ Hall, once again featuring lots more art along the walls.
In a stairwell further along, there were even more paintings. These date back 400-500 years and were restored over the last couple of decades.
I mentioned earlier that there was a temple outside on the grounds of the castle. Inside, there was a chapel which was a Catholic chapel. Due to tensions between Catholics and Protestants centuries ago, it eventually became unsafe to even acknowledge the chapel, so it was blocked off and fell into ruin.
It was opened back up in 1848 by the first Duke (a later owner), repairing and restoring the chapel. The 9th Baron finished the restorations from 1898-1901 who had it reconsecrated as a Church of England (i.e. Anglican/Episcopal) church.
One of the final rooms on the tour was the castle’s kitchen. Another great feature of Raby Castle is that they have a volunteer in nearly every single room. They’re there to provide information and answer any questions you might have which was very helpful.
For example, the volunteer in the kitchen shared that the castle was built on a volcanic plug. That meant the castle wouldn’t sink, but it also meant they couldn’t dig a well, nor build a dungeon as the rock from the volcanic plug was too solid to dig that deep.
She also shared that this kitchen served food from 1364-1954 – a period of almost 600 years!
There was a set of stairs in the kitchen. These led up to the Barons’ Hall that we’d walked through earlier. More recent owners of the castle decided that was too far, so they built a new kitchen behind the dining room to make it easy to transport food between the two.
The final couple of rooms we passed by were the scullery…
…and the servants’ dining room. This layout was very reminiscent of Downton Abbey.
Raby Castle Dining & Shopping
Raby Castle has a couple of eateries. The main one is the Vinery Café which is set in a historic glasshouse and is dog-friendly if you’re visiting with your pup.
This serves a selection of hot food that can be ordered off a menu, as well as various other sandwiches, pastries and more.
I ordered a handmade pork pie with salad which was pretty good.
Although it didn’t really go with my meal, I ordered a hot chocolate. That was superb and was quite possibly the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had. It was incredibly chocolatey and delicious.
Shae ordered a salted beef sandwich with (I think) horseradish aioli which she loved. We didn’t get a photo of that, but did take a photo of the fruit scone with jam and clotted cream that we shared.
The other eatery is the Garage Café. This has a much more limited selection of snacks like pre-packaged sandwiches, but it also serves Brymor ice cream.
In the old coach house is the Coach House Shop & Exhibition. In one half is a store selling boutique goods…
…and in the other is an exhibition about the castle’s history.
Raby Castle Activities
Raby Castle runs a wide variety of activities throughout the year. When arriving on our first visit, when getting our tickets and map, there was a flyer stapled to the map listing what was being held on the grounds over the course of the summer.
We’re looking forward to later in the year too because they’re offering ghost tours, a Christmas market and more.
There are various other activities bookable throughout the year too, such as a stargazing supper for two at the castle, a three course Sunday lunch or evening meal at the High Force Waterfall and more.
The Plotters’ Forest
We haven’t gone over to check it out yet, but there’s a large adventure playground for kids to play on in the Plotters’ Forest.
How Much Does Raby Castle Cost To Visit?
It’s hard to say exactly how much it costs to visit Raby because they have an incredible number of different ticket prices depending on your age, which parts of the castle and estate you want to visit, whether you want to get a family ticket, etc.
Rather than listing out the various prices, the best thing to do is check the ticket prices on their website here.
You can also get a full year’s membership if you think you might visit frequently. That costs £60 per year for an adult; in addition to unlimited membership, you get discounts at the Vinery Café and other perks.
Historic Houses Membership
Rather than Shae and I each getting a Raby Castle membership for a total of £120, we got a joint membership to Historic Houses for £128. An annual membership costs £68 for one adult and £60 for an additional adult, hence the £128 price.
The Historic Houses membership gets us unlimited entry to Raby Castle throughout the year. Seeing as we’d been considering getting a Raby membership, the additional £8 investment seemed worthwhile seeing as it’ll get us access to 100+ additional historic homes around the UK.
Final Thoughts
Shae, Truffles and I have greatly enjoyed our couple of visits to Raby Castle so far as it’s a beautiful building, with stunning grounds, lots of deer and more. We’ll definitely be making good use of our membership to return over the next year.
[…] My parents came to stay with us recently in County Durham, so we decided to visit a bunch of local attractions. One of those was the fantastic Raby Castle which posted about here. […]