Woodsford Castle, Dorset.
What remains today is just one side of a much larger building. Around 1660 the original turrets and battlements were replaced with an enormous thatched roof and it became a farmhouse. Its roof is believed to be the largest area of thatch on an inhabited house in this country.
After 600 years in the same family, Woodsford Castle was sold in 1977 to the Landmark Trust, the splendid charity that rescues historic buildings at risk and lets them for holidays; the other properties they let in Dorset are the Clavell Tower at Kimmeridge and the gatehouse of Wolfeton House.
It is now owned by The Landmark Trust and is not normally open to visitors.
