There seems little doubt that the house of 1615-20 was designed by Robert or John Smythson or
both. The tall, tower-like house surrounded by separate garden rooms (or pavilions) and
gatehouse, all contained within a symmetrical enclosed garden, with vantage points designed so
that the family could look out over the view from both the garden and the lead roof of the house,
are very typical signatures of the Smythson family. Mark Girouard in his book “Robert Smythson
and the Elizabethan Country House” states that the marks of a Smythson house are;
it is “high and compact, with no courtyards or only small ones…high basements, containing
the kitchens, cellars and offices, …great chambers or other large rooms upon the second or
third floors….and towers or lanterns…Ingenuity of planning is another Smythson
attribute…use of passages…the use of different floor and ceiling levels in one
house……the combination of towers and bays windows, often of different shapes, in order
to produce plans of striking and ingenious outline…the sense of drama”.
Caverswall Castle has all of these elements. There are other features which suggest the
Smythsons’ involvement – tall rows of classical stone chimneys engaged at the capital, the use of
an open balustrade at roof level (the house is now battlemented but the pavilions and gatehouse
are still balustraded) and an unusual detail where the chimney flues were taken up through the
largest piers within the balustrade, which has a direct precedent at Wollaton.

The stone walls are fairly plain in character, a typical feature of John Smythson’s buildings. They
are relieved by paired full-height angled bay windows and three stone bands which continue above
each series of windows forming a drip mould. The windows on the front of the house are ovolomoulded
as are the uppermost windows on the staircase tower and the second floor window to the
corridor that faces east, whilst those at the back and out of the public gaze are plain chamfered.
The balustraded parapet was replaced in the nineteenth century with the present battlements. The
porch has been altered. The earliest engraving of 1686 indicates a stone cresting over the porch
formed in Jacobean strapwork, probably containing the arms of the Cradock family. This would
have been easy to remove when the property changed hands. Nineteenth century engravings and
the evidence on site also indicate that the porch was probably open at one time. The terrace
immediately in front of the house has an open strapwork parapet wall with ball finials at regular
intervals. It was built in the nineteenth century. The previous balustrade probably contained turned
stone balusters.

Although the list description states that the house represents “a truncated rendition of the Slingsby
plan”, this must relate to the overall site plan, as they share the relationship of house to moat,
gatehouse, and towers enclosing a garden. The only similarity in the house plan is in the use of
long corridors. The Servants Hall, which is located at Lower Ground Level, is similar in size &
proportion to that at Bolsover Castle, but that is the only similarity in floor plan. The greatest
similarity in floor planning is with Gawthorpe Hall in Lancashire, probably designed by the
Smythsons, which also has a central corridor.
There was a peculiar fashion in the early seventeenth century for building little mock castles. Other
examples are Lulworth Castle in Dorset, Ruperra Castle in South Wales and Bolsover Castle, also
designed by John Smythson. These were built as occasional retreats or hunting lodges, mainly for
entertaining guests. Caverswall Castle, however, appears to have been built as the main residence
of the owner and this may be why the main building has a less distinct castle character.

Smythson plans typically have a Lower Ground Level with the following functions; general kitchen,
separate pastry kitchen, larder, a wine cellar, Survainge Place (servery), and pantry. The larger
houses also occasionally incorporated an ale cellar and a saucery. A Servants Hall was also
introduced at this level in John Smythson’s plan for Bolsover Castle. The room to the south of the
kitchen appears to have had this original function at Caverswall. The kitchen has a tall ceiling,
created by sinking the floor down four steps. This tall ceiling was a convention inherited from
medieval kitchens but the change in level is a very typical feature of Robert Smythson’s planning.
The fireplaces in the kitchen illustrated in 1893 suggest the relationship of a wide, open hearth for
cooking meat and separate boiling pan. There is no obvious evidence of the pastry ovens found
within most Smythson houses. This was usually within a separate room but it may have been
located within the cross wall (south wall of kitchen) with flue directed towards the north-eastern
stack. Alternatively it may have been located within a separate bakehouse, as a low building is
evident to the north-east of the main house on the 1686 engraving. A building still stands on this
site within the Moat House grounds. Five flues in this east wall terminate in five stacks indicating
two flues at Lower Ground Level but the 1686 engraving, which is accurate in every other respect,
does suggest only three or at the most four flues. This chimney was rebuilt in its entirety in the
nineteenth century. The larder seems to have remained in this use for many centuries (now the
location of the boiler).

There are only two staircases serving the building. Whilst this is not unusual for a property of this
size, multiple staircases were common features of Smythson plans. The skewed angle of the
doorway into the back staircase from Lower Ground Level was dictated by the internal floor layout.
It is also a typical feature of Smythson internal planning where external symmetry was important.
The staircase towers are quite different from the usual Smythson convention, which had either a
central stone core or a circular stair turret. Off the back staircase are small closets on the landing
of ground, first and second floors. In these there would have been a “close-stool and pan”,
a seatless chair over a chamberpot. These are still used as WCs. A separate closet, probably
a garderobe, which probably discharged directly to a simple sewerage pit, can also be found off afirst floor
bedchamber (RF4).

Above Lower Ground Level the floor planning is straightforward; a Hall was entered from the front
doorway via a screens passage. To the east was a Parlor, a room where the family would be
separate from the rest of the household. To the north of the Hall was a Dining Chamber, for
separate family dining. To the north of the Parlor was the Buttery (later the Butler’s Pantry) and a
separate private chamber, located to the east of the Buttery. The first floor Drawing Room relates
precisely to the location of the Great Chamber on a typical Smythson floor plan, above the Hall.
Both the central corridor & the corridor that runs east-west are part of the Smythson floor plan. The
central corridor follows the alignment of the central screens passage. It links directly with the
second back service staircase. The secondary corridor is more unusual as central corridors are
generally found within much later floor plans but it is well known that the Smythsons experimented
with floor plans and there are other examples where they introduced corridors or “passages”. It is
difficult to envisage any other arrangement within the constraints of the building. The presence of
this secondary, east-west, corridor enabled the spaces in the north-east and south–east quarters
of the building to be easily subdivided & independently accessed. During the late sixteenth and
early seventeenth centuries the upper floors of houses were generally subdivided into multiple,
interconnecting, small rooms and spaces, with the exception of the “Great Chamber” and “Long
Gallery”. The typical layout at upper floor level included a suite of rooms; either three for the larger
houses – Bedchamber, Withdrawing Chamber & Inner Chamber – or just two rooms for the smaller
houses – a Bedchamber & Inner Chamber or Closet. By the eighteenth century this arrangement
had been adapted into a fashionable Bedroom and Dressing Room and then by the end of the
nineteenth century, at Caverswall, the inner rooms (dressing rooms) had either remained as
dressings rooms or become separate bedrooms or bathrooms. This may have been done to
accommodate more servants in the second floor rooms of the house. Within the bedrooms there
are some subtle changes in floor level and this is also a characteristic of Robert Smythson’s
designs.

The pavilions were illustrated in the engraving of 1686. This shows clearly that they originally had
flat roofs (leaded) and that two, one in the north-east pavilion and one in the southern gatehouse,
had an independent first floor access approached via a flight of steps. There is also evidence in the
masonry in the north-west angle of the Dining Room that there was a separate first floor access
into the house at this point, at some time. There is some evidence that at least one of the upper
rooms in the pavilions was originally heated by a small fireplace (none survive). Some of the
ground floors of these garden pavilions were heated. One stone fireplace survives in situ but it has
been altered. Its flue terminates in the stone pier of the parapet wall. This was done so as not to
spoil the symmetry of the tower and its balustrade. The provision of independent access to single
rooms or split-level rooms can be found at other Robert Smythson houses. It was very useful for
servants as there was no attic level accommodation for servants at this time. Separate
independent lodgings for members of the household (the extended family) are a typical feature of a
Smythson house and this may have been the original purpose of the garden pavilions. There is no
evidence that they were designed as garden rooms for entertaining, as at other sites.
The pavilions and gatehouse were altered by the eighteenth century, as engravings show pitched
roofs, both conical & faceted. The current ceiling joists, however, are nineteenth and twentieth
century.
A small, pitch-roofed structure, with chamfered coped gables, sits between the main building & the
north-west pavilion, and was built into the northern retaining wall. It was probably built as a conduit
house or a well-head. The details are very similar in shape, size & form to conduit houses at
Bolsover Castle.

The versatility of the Smythson floor planning has meant that over the centuries, following the
construction of the house, very few alterations have been needed to the floor plan. However,
there are very few Smythson features visible within the house above Lower Ground Level;
for example, there is no evidence within the house for seventeenth century stone fireplaces