Castle Crawl

July 3 & 4

This post is long overdue but I have many good excuses....first, my sister visited us in London from July 9-22 and we stayed busy 24/7 so you will hear of those adventures in my next posting....and second, I am dealing with the logistics of our local move...more on that as well.

Rick and I enjoyed a true adventure over the 4th of July weekend when our plans to visit a friend in Amsterdam fell through due to the excessive price of tickets to anywhere in Europe during the summer months. We learned our lesson: plan ahead, book early, and don't travel when all the tourists are taking European vacations! Finding ourselves without plans for the 4th of July weekend, I turned to the National Trust Handbook to find some "local" attractions. The National Trust is a conservation organization that preserves, protects, and cares for more than 350 historic houses, castles, gardens, and monuments. These historic properties are open to the public for the price of admission and free to National Trust members. Our Marietta friend and neighbor, Carol, first told me about this organization and once I arrived in London, we quickly saw the benefits in joining. To date, I have visited 8 NT properties and plan to work my way through many more. So, with our free weekend and the guidebook in hand, I identified 7 houses, castles, and gardens that Rick and I could visit in a 16 mile radius all about 35 miles from London. The plan involved taking a train to a central location, renting a car (which would give Rick his first experience of driving on the "wrong side of the road" and booking a hotel room. By Thursday night, our/my ambitious plans were all in place!

Saturday morning, we took the train to Maidstone and walked to the rental car location on the ground floor of a historic and realtively unmarked building and asked for our car which we quickly learned would be a manual transmission. Driving on the "wrong side" is one thing but we weren't sure that Rick was up to also shifting left handed so we pleaded for an automatic which promptly increased the cost plus by this time, the rental agent had a good idea of our plans and advised us to also rent a GPS...this we soon found was a necessity for our little adventure. All the logistics put us behind on our itinerary so we scraped two of the properties and headed out to see the others. This proved to be a good decision as this part of the UK is full of rotaries or roundabouts which require you to carefully count the number of exits and select the proper one all while driving on the "wrong side" of the road so you can guess that we had to make several attempts at this exercise before we finally mastered the rotaries!

Our first stop was Hever Castle. For those of you who are fans of The Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory; you will recognize this castle as the childhood home of Mary and Anne Boleyn. Like many castles, it was constructed in phases, the earliest being 1270. The Tudor section was added in the middle 1500s and much later, it was owned by William Waldorf Astor who added the Italian Gardens. We loved this castle as much for its history as for its beauty!

Moving on, the second and final stop of the day was Chartwell. We were quite certain that we were never going to arrive at this destination as Mandy, our American speaking GPS, had us driving on winding, one lane roads with 20 foot tall hedgerows on either side so we could never see where we were headed or who was coming from the other direction! However, as she would say many times during our weekend adventure, "in 200 yards you will have reached your destination" and sure enough, miraculiously, we would be there!!! Chartwell is the Victorian Mansion that was home to Sir Winston Churchill for over 40 years. It was here that many of his famous speeches and books were written. I did not know that he was also an painter and the house and his studio display over 140 of his more than 500 paintings! Apparently, this great man slept very little so he had a small bedroom built next to his office where he would occasionally take a nap. The house is exactly as the Churchill's left it and it is full of history and very inspiring. We recommended it to some friends who visited the following weekend and were not disappointed!

On Sunday, we got a fairly early start so that we could see all three of the remaining properties. Driving continued to be an adventure and we were grateful to make it to every location! Our first stop was Scotney Castle which is actually two houses. The original castle was built in 1137 and is in partial ruins now but with its round towers and proximity on the river, it looks like a fairytale. The Elizabethan style Victorian Country House and Picturesque style garden were built in the mid 1800s and are beautiful. All manor houses and castles are surrounded by beautiful gardens and parkland which the local residents and all visitors are able to use; often free of charge.

Our second stop was Ightham Mote, a medieval manor house dating from 1320. Here we were greeted with the biggest surprise of the day. As we turned to take our first picture of this amazing house, we both spotted the American flag flying from the highest point. Since it was the 4th of July which is not celebrated (for obvious reasons) in the UK, Rick and I were curious to discover why the American flag was displayed. This property was actually rescued in the 1950s by an American, Charles Henry Robinson who upon his death bequeathed it to the NT....hence, the American flag.

The third and final castle was Leeds Castle, a very large, moated castle in 500 acres of spectacular parkland. Leeds is a commercial property so it has quite a different emphasis than the conservation properties owned by the NT. This more than 900 year old castle is actually a "queen's castle" having been in the hands of 6 medieval queens for over 150 years. It's last owner, also a woman, lived here from 1926 until her death in 1974. Much of the interior was restored and redecorated in the 1930s and it is interesting to see the "contemporary" fixtures, furniture, and decoration in this medieval setting.

Before we knew it, it was time for us to part with Mandy and our car and catch a train back to London. The weekend was a great adventure and we both agreed that we will pursue more visits to NT properties, that driving is challenging but possible, and that three attractions is the maximum that we can handle in one day!

We hope you enjoy our photos...I have tried to compile them so you will enjoy the experience as much as we did: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/alysehirsekorn/CastleCrawl?authkey=Gv1sRgCLPbuvrqz5WSpwE&feat=directlink