Wentworth Castle is a grade-I listed country house, the former seat of the Earls of Strafford, at Stainborough, near Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. It is now home to the Northern College for Residential and Community Education. An older house existed on the estate, then called Stainborough, when it was purchased by Thomas Wentworth, Baron Raby (later Earl of Strafford), in 1708. It was still called Stainborough in Jan Kip's engraved bird's-eye view of parterres and avenues, 1714, and in the first edition of Vitruvius Britannicus, 1715. The name was changed in 1731. The original name survives in the form of Stainborough Castle, a sham ruin constructed as a garden folly on the estate. The estate was in the care of the Wentworth Castle Heritage Trust from 2001 to June 2019 and was open to the public year-round seven days a week. Despite massive restoration, the castle gardens were closed to the public in 2017 amidst a funding crisis. In September 2018 it was announced that the National Trust planned to enter into a new partnership with Northern College and Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council to reopen the gardens and parkland to the public. The gardens and parkland reopened to the public on 8 June 2019. History The original house, known as the Cutler house, was constructed for Sir Gervase Cutler (born 1640) in 1670. Sir Gervase then sold the estate to Thomas Wentworth, later the 1st Earl of Strafford. The house was remodelled in two great campaigns, by two earls, in remarkably different styles, each time under unusual circumstances. First building campaign The first building campaign to upgrade the original structure was initiated by Thomas Wentworth, Baron Raby (1672–1739). He was the grandson of Sir William Wentworth, father of Thomas Wentworth, the attainted 1st Earl. Raby was himself created 1st Earl of Strafford (second creation) in 1711. The estate of Wentworth Woodhouse, which he believed was his birthright, was scarcely six miles distant and was a constant bitter sting, for the Strafford fortune had passed from William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford, the childless son of the great earl, to his wife's nephew, Thomas Watson; only the barony of Raby had gone to a blood-relation. M.J. Charlesworth surmises that it was a feeling that what by right should have been his that motivated Wentworth's purchase of Stainborough Castle nearby and that his efforts to surpass the Watsons at Wentworth Woodhouse