Stunning holiday home Historical Astley Castle in the Warwickshire countryside built in the shell of a ruined 12th century castle wins Britain’s top architecture award.
Astley Castle is an accent fortified manor house on a site has been in continuous occupation since the Saxon period for more than a thousand years. It is a building of national significance associated through ownership by the great family for three queens of England. It sites in a landscape which includes a moat, a gateway and curtain walls, lake, church and traces of a pleasure gardens. In 1674 the Castle was bought by the Newdigate family and who owned the neighboring Arbury Estate. After war world 11 the castle turned into a hotel but was gutted by a mysterious fire in 1978. Just days after its lease had expired. Vandalism, unauthorized stripping out and collapse made its plight still worse Astley Castle became a ruin. The site was so large and so complex that for many years no solution could be found to give it a future. Astley Castle was in danger for a total collapse that in 2007 English Heritage had listed it as one of the sixteen most endangered sites in Britain and a solution was urgently needed. Astley Castle was in diapered need of attention. After years of serving as an unofficial impromptu venue for a range of activities; on 2005 The Landmark Trust – a building preservation charity – proposed to restore the structure. They hosted a competition for the renovation of the residence and accompanying mote, entry gateway, curtain walls, lake, church, and vestiges of Elizabethan pleasure gardens. The winning scammed was by Witherford Watson Mann Architects it focused on breathing a new life into the ancient construction, reoccupy the old residence to re-institute the spaces as they had historically been used, retaining as much of the original feel of the space as possible.
An Englishman’s home has always been his castle, in July 2012; the Landmark Trust opened the newly-restored Astley Castle to the public to be a holiday home as well. The 2013 RIBA Stirling Prize has been won by Witherford Watson Mann for Astley Castle (Nuneaton, Warwickshire). The site is owned by The Landmark Trust and its holiday accommodation can be booked at a rate of $1,015.00, for four nights sleeping up to eight people. Photos: Courtesy of The Landmark Trust. Photos: Courtesy of The Landmark Trust, Riba, webspinners.org.uk.
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