Wray Castle - A beautiful 'mock' castle dating from the 1800s in the Lake District

We visited Wray Castle in the Lake District yesterday (sunday), while down visiting relatives who were staying in the area for the week.

It was our first visit there, having not really explored the Lake District much before. The Lake District is in the English county of Cumbria. The scenery there is quite incredible.

I've used the term 'mock' castle, because having been built in the 1800s, it is really actually a stately home that has been designed to look like a castle. It has never been in a war or anything like that, nor used for defensive purposes.

It has quite an interesting history, which you can read about about on wikipedia. It started out as a home, and has been used as a hostel, and a training headquarters for naval radio operators !

The castle has been in the care of the National Trust for nearly 100 years, and interestingly they only started opening it to the public in the last 10 years which I was quite surprised about (I would have thought they would have opened it up much earlier than that).

As you can see from the pics, it is very decorative on the outside. On the inside its quite different. The floors, walls and ceiling are decorative, however, there is literally nothing in it ! Due to its other uses over the years, it never retained any of its original 'castle' furnishings, hence there is not that much to see on the inside (ie, we spent a whole 10 minutes inside - there really was nothing to see).

The upper suspended floor looked fantastic, but the upper floor was not actually opened to the public. One of the guides said they had a lot of restoration to do up there.

The ceiling in the main hallway was quite impressive - just look at all the workmanship in the wood and the masonry - quite beautiful.

So it was a bit odd to visit, as there wasnt a huge amount to see really. The building itself is stunning, and atleast entry was free - although we are National Trust members anyway, so we wouldnt have had to pay even if there was an entry fee.

It had quite a nice cafe to one side, so we had a cup of tea there. Thats the toilet block for the cafe above - thats about as grand a toilet block you'd ever see !

Above is the view from the front of the castle, out over the fields towards Lake Windermere and the hills. There were a few woodland walks and the like around the castle, but it was bucketing rain, so we never bothered with that.

It did have some quite quirky architecture. Above is the orangery - a heated green house where they would have grown oranges in Victorian times. You basically could not get oranges in the UK back in those days unless you were wealthy and had the facilities to grow them yourself - it was all the rage for the rich ! I love the stonework on the orangery, it looks very gothic.

So it didnt turn out to be quite the castle we though it would be. We still enjoyed seeing it, it cost us nothing, apart from the trip to the cafe, and it was still lovely to see - so I'm glad we went. And if they manage to open the upper floor at some point, then I'd definitely go back.