An eerie large vaulted basement, known as “John of Gaunt’s cellar”, survives below ground that served as storage for the castle kitchens and later as a prison in the Napoleonic War.
From the Castle Motte you may spot a curious sealed up doorway and wonder what resides on the other side - this is John of Gaunt's Cellar.
The stone-vaulted cellar exists beneath the Castle Great Hall and possibly served a kitchen above or close to it. It has also been used as prison during the Napoleonic War with graffiti left by the unfortunate prisoners.
The cellar is located below the Castle’s Great Hall, which can be seen from the castle motte today - currently supported with scaffolding. The cellar would have been used to hold goods for the occasions in the Great Hall.
Despite the name it was built after Duke John of Gaunt's lifetime in the 1400s. Perhaps it was coined after the duke by the servants and other workers around Leicester Castle in homage to the extravagant banquets and feast said to have been held in the great hall during his rule.
Today the cellar looks very different, once turrets adorned this structure as well as a spiral staircase. At one time the cellar could be accessed via the entrance seen from the steps of the Castle Motte. John Flower, known as the 'The Leicester Artist', produced the lithograph (pictured below) for the Views of the Ancient Buildings in the Town and County of Leicester in 1826 showing the entrance was still in use in the 1800s.
To learn more of the cellar and the hall itself a detailed assessment by Nick Hill, The Twelfth-Century Aisled Hall of Leicester Castle: A Re-Assessment, 2012, published by the Transactions of the Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society, and made available on the University of Leicester's webpages.
Unfortunately the cellar is not open to the public at this time.