Raby Castle in County Durham is considered the most impressive in the whole of the north of England.
The earliest mention of it occurs in the reign of King Canute, who ruled over the whole of England, Norway and Denmark and owned the estate in the early 11th century.
One owner was John de Nevill whose son fought at Agincourt, and whose second wife was Joan Beaufort, daughter of John of Gaunt and half sister of Henry IV.
Astonishingly, they had 21 children, and the most famous of them was Cecily Nevill, the beautiful 'Rose of Raby' as she was known.
Two of her sons became Kings of England, Edward IV and Richard III.
Her granddaughter Elizabeth Plantagenet, wife of Henry IV, was the ancestress of our present Queen Elizabeth II.
The Lords of Raby became through the centuries, Earls of Darlington, Marquises of Cleveland and then Dukes of Cleveland, whose title derived from the Cleveland Hills in Yorkshire, only 30 miles from Raby Castle in Durham.
The entrance hall to Raby Castle is so wide that a carriage and pair could be driven through it.
Wordsworth wrote of the Baron's Hall at Raby where in feudal times assembled the 700 knights who held their lands under the Lord of Raby:
'Seven hundred Knights, retainers all
of Nevill, at their Master's call
Had sate together in Raby's Hall.'
- This information was compiled by Mrs Charles Young of Como in Ormiston, for a paper she delivered to the Queensland Women's Historical Association in the Centenary Year of Queensland in 1959.
