[2] In the early 17th century, the estate was granted by the Crown to Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset, from whom it subsequently confiscated the castle back due to his involvement in a poisoning scandal.

[6] The present building is largely his work, to the designs of the architect John Paterson, and then improved in the mid-19th century by Anthony Salvin[1] for William Russell, High Sheriff of Durham in 1841.

[3] In 1939 it became the regimental headquarters for the Durham Light Infantry, who erected a military camp of over 100 huts to the south of the village during the Second World War.

Margaret Dobson restored the fabric and interior of the building, including the lead roof, which had been stripped by an earlier tenant.

[8][9] Original French political posters from 1968 found in the cellar of the castle featured in the BBC programme Inside Out North East & Cumbria in February 2019.