The New Murrey and Blue blog

A lot of you may already have twigged that I enjoy the Country Life magazine articles about historic properties throughout the UK, and this https://tinyurl.com/3wdz2rzh (written by Toby Keel) is one of them. We all like to dream about living in a Home with History, but very few of us manage to achieve the dream. I’ll never aspire to part of Thurland Castle (see https://culturalheritageonline.com/places/thurland-castle/) close to the Lancashire/Cumbria border, but that doesn’t mean I can’t press my nose to the window and gaze wistfully inside. Well, gaze wistfully into Musgrave House in the West Wing, which is the part of the castle that is for sale.

All you need is £1,100,000, which will bring you a wonderful four-bedroom home with all the luxuries of modern living, but in a castle that has its roots in the very early 1400s. If you go to the Musgrave House link above, there is a video that will show you what you’ll get—provided you can catch your piggybank.

Sir Thomas Tunstall was a Lancashire landowner (a Lancastrian, clearly) who supported and served Henry IV (Boo! Hiss! Henry IV was an over-ambitious usurping regicide!!! See https://murreyandblue.co.uk/2026/01/25/which-king-was-vindictive-and-unworthy-richard-ii-or-henry-iv/) In 1402 Henry gave Sir Thomas a licence to fortify his manor house and enclose 1,000 acres. Sir Thomas was suddenly doing very well indeed. Then, in 1415, when Henry’s son Henry V was on the throne, Sir Thomas and his men fought for the king at the Battle of Agincourt (https://www.britishbattles.com/one-hundred-years-war/battle-of-agincourt/). Eleven days after the battle, Sir Thomas died, presumably of wounds received during the conflict.

It seems that “….Thurland Castle has actually featured in Country Life before: it came up for sale in 1985, with the whole thing being advertised for ‘offers over £500,000’….”

Well, you won’t get the whole castle now, and you’ll need twice as much of the spondulicks, but off you go to lasso those piggybanks! 

PS: There is a later connection between the Tunstalls, Thurland Castle and Richard III, as you can read at this link: https://richardiii-ipup.org.uk/riii/44 .

And at https://www.geni.com/people/Richard-Tunstall-KG/6000000004089162476 there is a family tree of the Tunstall family, although I cannot vouch for its accuracy.

by viscountessw