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Summary

'Fortified' 18th century country house with literary association

Monument Types

• COUNTRY HOUSE (Post Medieval - 1501 AD to 1900 AD)

Protected Status

• Area of Archaeological Significance 99

Full description

'Castle Farm on site of Preston Castle' marked on OS 6" 1960. The OS states that 'nothing is known about the castle at the farm and no documentary evidence for it can be found. There are no traces of antiquity at the site. The farmhouse is 19th century, the outbuildings modern' <1>.
'Preston Castle (or Hunsdon House) is a house about which very little information is available. The name Preston Castle derives from Captain Robert Hinde, who built earthwork fortifications in the grounds and is said to be the original of Lawrence Sterne's Uncle Toby. An early 19C engraving shows that the house comprised two wings… the older east wing had details of about the middle of the 17C… behind was added a taller early 18C wing of six bays. Hinde provided the entire house with battlemented parapets of uniform height and cross-loops like those of a medieval castle. The whole was demolished in the 19C' <2>. It was marked 'Castle Farm, on site of Preston Castle' (in archaic lettering) on the 1884 OS map <3>. The battlements and earthworks presumably dated to the early 18th century; 'Uncle Toby' is a character in Sterne's mid 18th century novel Tristram Shandy.

<1> OS Records (Index). SHT8223.

<2> Smith, J T, 1993, Hertfordshire houses: selective inventory, - p144 (Bibliographic reference). SHT16660.

<3> OS 6" map, 1st edition (1868-84), 1884 (Cartographic material). SHT8054.

Sources and further reading

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