The association between the Newcastle families and Nottingham Castle and Park dated from 1641, when William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne acquired it on lease.
A fresh chapter in the life of the Castle and Park began in 1662/3 when the 1st Duke purchased the site from the Duke of Buckingham for the sum of £4,400. The ruins of the old castle were cleared away and the duke began to rebuild.
The 1st Duke's palace was completed in 1679, after his death, at an estimated cost of £14,000. The elegant new structure was a splendid ducal palace, in a style of architecture that has been linked to European models.
Its original plans do not survive, and modern understanding of the building has drawn on later documents and the physical evidence that has survived the nineteenth-century reconstruction, like this eighteenth-century ground floor plan.
Ground story plan of Castle 1769
(Nottingham Park Estate Archive, NPE P 4/5/2)