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The #8 bus between Bishop Auckland and Barnard Castle runs down the A688 to provide access to the sprawling battlements of Raby Castle (May & Sept Wed & Sun 1-5pm; June-Aug Mon-Fri & Sun 1-5pm; gardens same days 11am-5.30pm; GBP5; gardens only GBP3; ), roughly halfway between the two. The castle mostly dates from the fourteenth century, reflecting the power of the Neville family, who ruled the local roost until 1569. It was then that Charles Neville helped plan the "Rising of the North", the abortive attempt to replace Elizabeth I with Mary Queen of Scots. The revolt was a dismal failure, and Neville's estates were confiscated, with Raby subsequently passing to the Vanes, now the Lords Barnard, who still live in the castle. Raby's focal point is the first-floor Baron's Hall, still of cathedral-like dimensions in spite of the floor being raised ten feet in 1787 to let carriages pass through the neo-Gothic entrance below. Outside the castle, in the two-hundred-acre deer park , are the walled gardens , where peaches, apricots and pineapples once flourished under the careful gaze of forty Victorian gardeners. Heated cavity walls and curtains protected the trees from frost - above the last remaining apricot tree you can still see the hooks for the curtain rail.
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