place was seized by the Parliament after the Duke went abroad, and was
sold and begun to be pulled down, but was then bought by Sir Charles,
the Duke's youngest brother, and so restored to the family."[2]

The present castle was built at different periods. The north-east end,
which was erected by Sir Charles Cavendish, about the year 1613, is the
oldest. The interior of this portion is uncomfortably arranged. The
rooms are small, and the walls are wainscoted, and fancifully inlaid and
painted. The ceilings of the best apartments are carved and gilt, and
nearly the whole of the floors are coated with plaster. There is a small
hall, the roof of which is supported by pillars; and a star-chamber,
richly carved and gilt. The only comfortable apartment, according
to Mr. Rhodes, is now called the drawing room, but was formerly the
_pillar-parlour_, from its having in the centre a stone column, from
which springs an arched ceiling, while round the lower part of the shaft
is a plain dinner-table, in the right chivalric fashion. From the roof
of this building, to which the ascent is by winding stairs, the view
extends "till all the stretching landscape into mist decays." The garden
beneath is surrounded with a wall about three yards thick, and contains
an old fountain of curious and expensive workmanship, which Dr. Pegge,
(who was a native of Chesterfield, and wrote a history of Beauchief
Abbey,) has laboured to prove very beautiful.

Hitherto we have spoken but of that part of Bolsover Castle which was
formerly denominated the Little House, to distinguish it from the more
magnificent structure adjoining. This immense fabric, whose walls are
now roofless and rent into fissures, was built by William, the first
Duke of Newcastle, in the course of the reign of Charles II., but is
said never to have been entirely finished. The interior walls are but
bare stones; the door and window cases, and the different apartments,