ENGLAND’S last castle, completed 450 years ago, was the most opulent private residence in the country.

Basing House was a colossal Tudor structure built by the powerful and long-lived courtier Sir William Paulet, who later became the Marquess of Winchester, reaching the heights of Lord High Treasurer.

Sadly little is left of the once magnificent house, but to commemorate its completion, a Tudor weekend was held at the historic site.

Shedding light on its Tudor past, dressed in appropriate garb, was the site’s curator Alan Turton.

Taking visitors on his Tudor Palace Tour, he explained that it was the de Port family who came to England with William the Conqueror who built an earth and timber castle at Basing in the 1100s.

Remains of the final position of the castle can be seen today, with its large circular bank and defensive ditches.

Centuries later Sir William Paulet inherited the property in 1525.

It was in 1531, while working as Comptroller of the Royal Household at Hampton Court, that Paulet decided to build his new house in Basing at a time when the renaissance style of architecture was becoming highly fashionable.

Alan said: “The whole idea of the time was height and light – people didn’t want dingy narrow rooms and castellated walls, but William did.

“To have battlements and crenellations you had to have a royal licence because it was a military threat to the Crown.”

Armed with the licence, a copy of which is on show in the Visitor Centre, Sir William began his grand scheme.

“It should never have been called Basing House, as it is England’s last castle,” said Alan, dismissing a similar claim made by Castle Drogo, in Devon, which he described as an Edwardian house.

“The great house was built in red brick. Red brick of course comes from clay, and clay we have got aplenty around here.

“So all the millions of bricks that would be required to build Basing House were all quarried out of the surrounding fields.”

He said that Paulet rebuilt the house inherited from his father and then enlarged it again, finishing in 1561.

Prior to the second phase of building, the house was deemed good enough for Henry VIII to visit in October 1535.

“He was going to go to Guildford, but when he heard of an outbreak of plague nearby, he came to Basing House,” said Alan.

It proved to be a costly visit that lasted three days, said Alan, leading Paulet to write in his diary: “This is costing me £2,000 – will I ever see my money again?”

The amount is reckoned to be £600,000 in today’s money, spent on three days of parties. Fortunately for Paulet, the king enjoyed his time at Basing House.

The only building still standing that Henry would have seen is The Great Barn, which was finished in 1535, which Alan describes as “the most dramatic surviving piece of William’s building work”.

Paulet employed the best craftsmen to provide decoration, an example of which is an opened mouth roundel on display in the Visitor Centre.

“The roundels at Basing House were better, in my opinion, than the terracotta ones at Hampton Court,” said Alan.

“This one was dug up outside the gatehouse area in Victorian times and I have found two others in more recent years.

“What we think they are doing is affirming the virtues of the owner of the house – singing his praises.”

Royal visits aside, the upkeep of the house must have cost a small fortune and it may well have been kept boarded up most of the time.

Alan said: “I think you have got to look at it a bit like a resort hotel.

“Because of William’s position at court, wherever the king or queen may have been, he would have been with them.

“So there would have been a skeleton household most of the time and William would have nipped back when he could, but it was a long way from London on a horse.”