Devizes Castle todayAFTER Oliver Cromwell defeated the Royalist forces in Devizes, the end was nigh for the medieval Devizes Castle.

In 1646 it became a source of building materials for the community. A sketch of 1730 shows the castle mound surmounted by two windmills.

In the 19th century the castle grounds were acquired by merchant Valentine Leach who began in 1840 to build a new castle, which grew over the next 40 years in a strange mixture of Norman and Gothic styles.

A later owner, Sir Charles Rich, added Tudor-style windows. But its history after the Second World War is not a happy one.

It was acquired by a scrap metal dealer who stripped the lead off the roof and left the building to deteriorate. Parts of the castle were sold off separately so that, by 1953, it was in four different ownerships, divided into the North Tower, the South Tower, the Gatehouse and Moat Cottage.

The North Tower was bought in 1966 by Polish war hero Edward Kemp. Born Edward Maszewski in Skiernewice in 1922, he became one of the youngest pilots in the Polish air force and when his country was overrun by the Nazis in 1939 he fled to France, where he was wounded in action and spent two and a half years helping Allied VIPs escape over the Pyrenees to Spain.

He, and then his daughter Anna, devoted their lives to renovating the North Tower and it is still in the family's ownership.