Castle Hall

Castle Hall is one of the biggest houses in the town. It was the biggest in fact until last year when Jim, from ‘Big Jim’s Cars’ completed his ranch style home on Temecliffe. Jim’s house (called Jimjoans – a clever amalgamation of Jim and his wife Joan’s first names) stands high on the cliff with lovely views of the river and town below. For those on the south side of the town looking out, ‘Jimjoans’ seems to occupy most of the horizon. And so it should – it has 14 bedrooms, 15 bathrooms, 6 reception rooms, a games room, a bar, a projection room,  a gymnasium, a covered swimming pool and a paddock with stable for his daughter Janey’s horses. (She has four). Its architecture has been variously described as  “hideous”, “completely out of keeping”, “sickening” and “indescribably bland”. No-one can quite understand how it ever got past the normally very strict planning officers. Even the planning officers can’t quite understand how it got past them. They look at the plans Jim submitted and they look at the house and they do match – so it is not as if Jim built a completely different house. They have attempted to find various ways of explaining their oversight – that the original plan they received was drawn in a temporary invisible ink which gradually faded away to reveal the actual plan only after they had agreed it; that they were all blind drunk for 5 months; that they were holding the plans upside down; or, the favoured explanation – that Jim is some kind of shamen capable of bewitching council officials with the power of his mind or by some gas or scent he gives off. Whatever the reason, the plans were passed and Jim was able to plough his considerable fortune into building his family home. Despite protests from residents, visitors, councillors, and  the local campaign group  … Jim’s house remains for all to see and for him to enjoy.

So until the finishing touches were made on Jim’s house, the award for the biggest house in the town went to Castle Hall on the other side of the river. Castle Hall is so named because of its proximity to the castle – it is almost as if it is built into the castle walls themselves – the rear wall of the garden is in fact the castle wall. At some point a larchlap fence was put up in front of this to clearly delineate the house’s land but this has largely rotted away and repeated batterings with footballs have rendered it useless. Building of Castle Hall began in 1737, the original part having a nine window frontage with a handsome door reached by a flight of six stone steps. Towards the end of the 18th century two wings were added, giving the front a total of 17 windows. 

The house has had some illustrious residents and visitors. Lord Clive of India lived there for a time, as did the Earl of Wellington, who also owned Down Castle, 15 miles to the north. It also provided a rather luxurious prison at the turn of the nineteenth century for the dashing, suspected spy Rupert ‘The Red’ Rhinehart, before being owned from 1840 to 1888 by the campaigner for women’s rights, Mary Taylor. It was purchased by the expanding grammar school in 1893 to provide dormitories for boys from out of town and its unmarried male staff (of whom there were many). The grammar school made a very good deal for its purchase from its then owner John Napier Brown who needed a quick sale and hard cash to pay off his horse racing debts. It has remained a dormitory ever since, although since the introduction of comprehensive education and the transformation of  the school into a Sixth Form College, it is now called a ‘Hall Of Residence.  It was briefly used as a hospital during the First World War, for officers suffering from shell shock, some of whom were old boys of the school and the Home Guard used it as a training centre in the 1940s. Some academics think it is the setting for the long and rather depressing poem “One Hundred Darkling Rooms” by the nineteenth century Shropshire Poet  E.E. Taft, who lived in the town for ten years at the end of his life.  but this has never been proved.

Its use as a dormitory has always seemed a little incongruous – its graceful interiors covered in posters, its gardens used for football matches and furtive smoking; and its corridors for racetracks. Castle Hall, however,  will not be a dormitory for much longer. A  need for funds for the college means that the old place is going to be sold. Very few students use it now anyway as improved public transport has meant that it is possible to study at the college but live some distance away. So Marcus and Miles, self appointed leaders of the Hall residents, are planning a big farewell party sometime in June. They are billing it as a mini Glastonbury with bands, booze and camping in the garden, although they can’t bill it too loudly, in case the college authorities find out about it and stop it before they have even begun.