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Victorian Castles
Lord Tollemache
Lord Tollemache inherited his estate in Cheshire and Helmingham Hall in Suffolk from his mother who was a sister of the last Earl of Dysart. His mother's husband had taken the Dysart family name of Tollemache. Peckforton Castle was built by Lord Tollemache to replace his parent's house, Tilstone Lodge, which was a large and unremarkable building. Tollemache was very much typical of what we today would imagine a Victorian man to be like. He was a passionate evangelical, Bible reader and Sabbitarian who had his family in awe of him. He was an athlete when young and had twenty four children and considering the difficulties of child birth at the time his wife must have been just as hardy. He drove a four in hand in his eighties and died still vigorous at eighty five.
Anthony Salvin
Anthony Salvin was admired for his work on Peckforton by many who considered that no one could have done it better. Salvin had a feeling for the arrangement of medieval buildings and details that combine to make up a castle so making Peckforton Castle a convincing re-creation. Salvin understood that the main concept for a castle was a defensive surrounding curtain wall with towers spaced along it and domestic buildings arranged on the inside of the wall forming a courtyard in the centre. By making use of this form he was able to fit in all the parts that make up a Victorian house in an arrangement that suited modern living, such complicated designs would never have been found in a medieval castle. The castle may not be archaeologically correct but the general effect is convincing, this is largely to do with its functional appearance and lack of elaboration. Peckforton's walls are no higher than they need to be and the general effect is long, squat and practical, unlike the earlier Victorian castles of Belvior and Penhryn.
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