Sizergh Castle

Sizergh Castle and Garden is a castle, stately home and garden at Helsington in the English county of Cumbria, about 4 mi south of Kendal, and in the care of the National Trust.

The Deincourt family owned this land from the 1170s. On the marriage of Elizabeth Deincourt to Sir William de Stirkeland in 1239, the estate passed into the hands of what became the Strickland family, who owned it until it was gifted to the National Trust in 1950. The Strickland family still live at the Castle.

The core of the medieval castle is a 14th-century solar tower surrounded by a Tudor house. It was extended in Elizabethan times and has oak-panelled interiors, including the Inlaid Chamber, complete with period furniture and panelling inlaid with poplar and oak.

The contents of the Inlaid Chamber had been sold to the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A). During the last part of the 20th century, the V&A starting loaning the panelling back piecemeal. The entirety of the panelling was restored in 1999 under a long-term loan.

Around 1770, the great hall was again expanded in the Georgian style.

Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII and a relative of the Stricklands, is thought to have lived here after her first husband died in 1533. Catherine's second husband, Lord Latymer, was kin to the dowager Lady Strickland.

The estate covers 647 hectares (1,600 acres), in the midst of which is a garden including two lakes as well as an award-winning rock garden. The estate dates from 1336, when a grant from Edward III allowed Sir Walter Strickland to enclose the land around Sizergh as his exclusive park. The rock garden is the largest limestone rock garden belonging to the National Trust and includes part of the National Collection of hardy ferns.

The Castle contains a variety of paintings, including the following:

• portraits by Alexis Simon Belle of Queen Mary of Modena and her daughter Princess Louisa Maria., Lady Edeline Sackville who was later to marry Lord Strickland.
• an interesting collection of portraits of the Catholic Royal Stuart family, including 'The Old Pretender'.
• portrait of Anne Cholmeley (1796–1829), Mrs Jarrard Edward Strickland (the artist's mother), by Harriet Strickland