Lambton Castle
| Lambton Castle | |
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Lambton Castle in the late 19th century.
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 Lambton Castle
 Lambton Castle shown within County Durham |
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| OS grid reference | NZ298526 |
| Coordinates | 54°52′01″N 1°32′10″W / 54.867°N 1.536°WCoordinates: 54°52′01″N 1°32′10″W / 54.867°N 1.536°W |
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Lambton Castle located in Chester-le-Street, County Durham, is a stately home, the ancestral seat of the Lambton family, the Earls of Durham. It is a Grade II* listed building.
Largely constructed in its present form between 1820 and 1828 by John Lambton, first Earl of Durham and one-time Governor General of Canada, it was built around the existing Harraton Hall, a 17th-century mansion. The castle was designed by architects Joseph Bonomi the Elder and his son Ignatius and built in the style of a Norman castle, as was the fashion of the time.
Later additions to the house built by Sydney Smirke in 1862–65, including the great hall, were largely demolished in 1932. In the 1930s the family moved to the smaller Biddick Hall on the estate.
The park that surrounds the castle is bordered by a high wall and is still used for an annual pheasant shoot. For a time in the 1970s, the castle's grounds were also home to Lambton Lion Park, opened in 1972 and closed in 1980.
In a more recent transaction the Lambton family have sold the Biddick Woods, which now includes the link road from the A182 to the A690 in Houghton le Spring and new business units.
In 2012, Lambton Castle was the setting of the new BBC One drama The Paradise.
On 30 December 2015 plans for the development of the Lambton Estate were submitted to the local planning authority for approval: the plans would help fund the conservation of the park, with potential to turn the Lambton Castle into a wedding venue, boutique hotel or both, with between £26million and £28.5million needed to fund the work. The plans were submitted by the Trustees of Lord Durham’s 1989 Voluntary Settlement, which manages the estate on behalf of the Lambton family.
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