CASTLES IN THE SOUTH EAST

[Grandad]

I mentioned in an earlier post that we were waiting for a good day to re-visit Bodiam Castle. I had pondered on perhaps starting a thread on castles in my corner of the UK, something I know is of particular interest to Kiya. Well I suppose I am setting myself a commitment but I will try to expand this thread in due course as we have opportunities to visit castles in Kent and East Sussex. I started last Friday by going into town and walking along Castle Street to Canterbury Castle:

CANTERBURY CASTLE
After arriving at Hastings in Sussex in 1066, Duke William of Normandy (William the Conqueror) made directly across Kent to Canterbury taking the city without any resistance. He ordered the building of three Royal Palaces at Dover, Rochester and Canterbury. Great builders those Normans Canterbury was the first palace but became less important when Dover Castle was completed for its valuable strategic location.

The first records of Canterbury Castle being used date from 1087 when it was used as a prison. It has a long history (all available on Google, I won’t bore you here) but the interior was on three floors with prison cells on the virtually unlit ground floor, and accommodations on the upper two floors. The castle is not huge and measured 30 metres x 26 metres x 24 metres high. It is of only limited interest to visitors and admission is free.

The castle is now a ruin but there is one spiral staircase in the south east corner available to visitors. A staircase I know well because as young boys in the war years we used to play in the castle and climb the, then unguarded, staircase.

Here are a few pictures in and around the castle.
View from Castle Street
Exterior of North Wall
Visitor Entrance
Interior
Interior view with upper floor joist seatings visible
View from Gas Street

With good weather on Saturday, Bodiam should be next.

[Grandad]

Fortunately Saturday was a better day although still very windy. So we went off to Bodiam. We are NT members so it was an inexpensive outing, just a gallon or two of petrol.

BODIAM CASTLE
Bodiam Castle in East Sussex is arguably the finest example of medieval moated military architecture in Britain. It was built between 1385 and 1388 by Sir Edward Dalyngrigge, a veteran of the 100 Years War. Dalyngrigge was very successful as a soldier of fortune and returned from France with significant plunder which, together with him marrying well into a wealthy family, allowed him to build his castle, which was actually a fortified manor house. The high walls and wide moat were a great deterrent to attackers

Bodiam is a very ‘modern' castle. The inside differs from older castles because there is no keep or inner defensive buildings. All the rooms were built into the walls, leaving an open central courtyard. The castle plan is really simple. A square with turret towers at each corner and a square tower in the middle of each wall. Although in ruins, with a little imagination it allows a visitor to see how the castle would have looked when it was first built.

The castle is in a stunning setting on the River Rother. It is managed by The National Trust. Admission is £5 although many local visitors just take a picnic and for just £2 parking fee enjoy the location with the children. Here is a small selection from my many pictures.

Castle aspect from the south
Main Gate in north wall
Interior view, is that a ghost lower right
Interior view of one of the rooms
View from the top of a tower
The very wide moat
Pano of the interior, is that the ghost again?
I include this view from the tower because it includes a Kentish Oast House with the white cowls and also a vineyard. There is a lot of wine produced in this area and it is good enough to win awards against French wines.

I don't know which castle will come next, probably Rochester......

[LovelyLadyLux]

Super interesting Grandad and great photos. I always marvel at castles. No two were alike (unlike houses today) and the work that went into creating them was phenomenal.

Now the question - what came first? The castle or the moat?

[Kiya]

Fantastic photos Grandad especially Bodiam Castle set in beautiful surroundings with moat etc

Ghost ? I wish I could say yes possibly your finger touching the lens

Roy & I being NT members also I plan to visit all castles in the NE Scotland

[Grandad]

Ghost ? I wish I could say yes possibly your finger touching the lens

Finger on the lens? Nah! That'a ghost And it is in the pano as well......hopefully Horus will have a suggestion about it. I have not seen it in any other pictures and there are certainly no hot air vents under the lawn

[Grandad]

Now the question - what came first? The castle or the moat?

I think it was more about location LLL. Ideally a castle would be built on a hill with a good outlook and for its defensive advantages like firing arrows down or pouring hot liquids down on any attackers. Where a castle was on more level ground then a moat presented a hazard to any attackers. The moat at Bodiam is very wide and as such was far enough away from attackers to withstand any boulders hurled by war machines.

[Horus]

Fabulous topic Grandad with lots of interest, I am a bit of a castle fan mysef and have visited some of the Welsh Castles and a few of our Northern ones as well. The answer to LLL's question is that the Castles were usually preceeded by what is known as a 'Mott & Bailey' this was a man made mound surrounded by a palsaded wooden wall, in many castles this feature is still visible and can be seen in Warwick castle. The moat at Bodlian is interesting because it is a totally useless feature and can be easily drained by an enemy attacking the castle I must brush up my history of the place, but I seem to recall it was allowed to be built as a reward to some baron who married a very rich widow and made his money in trade and supported the then king. It is a bit late in the castle building timeline and was built more as a status symbol because the guy had delusions of granduer. It is worth noting that all castles were built defensively and as a means of controlling the population which was usually hostile, the Welsh castles are a very good example of this. Some were built by the English to subjugate the Welsh and some built by Welsh princess in particular Llywelyn, who challenged that English rule, the more famouse Welsh castles that surround the coast were built by the English Plantagenet King Edward I. He was also famous for his campaigning against Scotland and he employed a similar method of castle building in an attempt to subjugate the Scots earning himself the name 'Longshanks' due to his stature and 'The Hammer of the Scots' for his brutality towards any opposition to his rule in Scotland.

Have a guess at how many castles are either in Wales or very close to the Welsh Borders? ther answer will surprise you.
Answer =

Spoiler

About 300

Castles often changed hands during conflicts and many of the more southern Scottish castles and the more inland Welsh castles were faught over many times, Sterling castle being a good example.
I am fortunate to live within sight of a castle, even though it is a Victorian folly

[Kiya]

WoW! I never thought of that amount of castles in Wales, I have some of Conwy Castle Wales when I was visiting a friend , must look them out.

[Horus]

To be fair Kiya, although they are (or were) real castles, most are just a pile of stones or outlines in the landscapes, but having said that there is still a large number of castles still in a reasonable state of repair.

[Grandad]

Picking up Horus's explanation of a 'Mott and Bailey', there was one at Canterbury 100 yards or so from and preceding the flint castle. It was just inside the third century roman wall (later added to by the Normans). The Mott or mound (later modified somewhat) still stands in Dane John Gardens. This is it today.


As a young boy I always understood it to be a burial mound and that might well be the case. I am sure that the archaeologists would have a field day digging into it.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Very interesting explanations. I WAS half serious when asking cause it seems that it would take years to build a castle and then more years to build a moat and ideally it would make more sense to build a castle where a moat would be naturally occuring. It also never occurred to me 'til H said it that a moat could be drained. That would definitely be a tactic worth tackling if you were the opposition.

I find castles fascinating and would love to be close enough to go exploring them. As best here we get big houses here that are very very downscaled versions of your castles.

Really terrific photos......hope you all have a full agenda of castle visits for the summer so you can share on E4U.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Very interesting explanations. I WAS half serious when asking cause it seems that it would take years to build a castle and then more years to build a moat and ideally it would make more sense to build a castle where a moat would be naturally occuring. It also never occurred to me 'til H said it that a moat could be drained. That would definitely be a tactic worth tackling if you were the opposition.

I find castles fascinating and would love to be close enough to go exploring them. As best here we get big houses here that are very very downscaled versions of your castles.

Really terrific photos......hope you all have a full agenda of castle visits for the summer so you can share on E4U.

[Grandad]

I mentioned elsewhere that we planned to go to Scotney Castle yesterday. We did go and here is a short account of the estate and some of my pictures.

Scotney Castle is an English country house with formal gardens south-east of Lamberhurst in the valley of the River Bewl in Kent, England. It belongs to the National Trust.
Earliest records of the old castle date back to 1137. There were various owners until the Darrell family owned the estate for some 350 years. Then in 1778 Edward Hussey bought the estate and his grandson, also Edward, built the 'new' Castle to the designs of Anthony Salvin, from sandstone quarried from the slope below the new house. The hollow created was developed into a Quarry Garden and contains a 100 million year old impression of a dinosaur's footprint.
The gardens, which are a celebrated example of the Picturesque style, are open to the public. The central feature is the ruins of medieval, moated manor house, Scotney Old Castle, which is on an island on a small lake. The lake is surrounded by sloping, wooded gardens with fine collections of rhododendrons, azaleas and kalmia for spring colour, summer wisteria and roses, and spectacular autumn colour.
At the top of the garden stands a house which was built to replace the Old Castle between 1835 and 1843. This is known as Scotney New Castle, or simply Scotney Castle, and was designed by Anthony Salvin. It is an early, and unusually restrained, example of Tudor Revival architectural style in 19th century Britain.
On Christopher Hussey's death in 1970 the estate was left to the National Trust. His wife, Elizabeth, continued to live in an apartment in the house and following her death, in 2006, the house was opened to the public for the first time on June 6, 2007
The castle grounds have played host to Shakespeare productions, notably A Midsummer Night's Dream, with the actors appearing from behind the bushes on cue.
Old Scotney Castle was used as the location for the video to the Squeeze song Some Fantastic Place.
The house is very much as it was through its Victorian period, full of antiques, paintings and objet d’art. Unusually photography is allowed inside the house so in the following selection from my pictures I am able to give a flavour of the interior.

Sorry Kiya; it hardly rates as a ‘castle’ by our definition but it is a lovely house and estate in this corner of Kent .

With acknowledgements to Wikipedia for most of the above text and the aerial photo.

Front entrance to Scotney New Castle. Note the warm sandstone constuction.

Drawing room overlooking the estate.

The Library.

Cast Iron fireback recovered from the Old Castle, dated 1604, James I.

Elizabeth Hussey's sitting room. The lacquered bureau is C1780.

Elizabeth Hussey's bedroom with early twentieth century dress.

Painting of Elizabeth Hussey wearing the above dress.

Quarry garden looking down to the Old Castle.

Across the lake moat.

Old Castle ruins.

Cottage and old ruins.

Scotney New Castle.

Aerial view of the island in the lake.

[Horus]

Thanks for posting this Grandad, smashing photo's and some nice local history, isn't it amazing how slim waisted those ladies were! I am fascinated by your mention of the dinosaur footprint, is it still there? It is when I see locations like this throughout the UK that I realise what a beautiful and varied country we live in and so full of history, where else could you see such variation in such a small area as our four national homelands and when we get some prolonged sunshine as we have had this year, then who needs to travel abroad?

[Grandad]

Thanks Horus. It was nice to be able to take pictures inside, the only condition was, no flash. I think that is simply to avoid annoyance to other visitors and not for any 'damage' reason. However I very seldom use flash at all and, provided there is a reasonable level of light, I think you get much better pictures and without horrible hard shadows.

I don't know if the footprint is visible, it might well be because there is a walk down in the quarry but after nearly 3 hours walking around, I gave that a miss.

I do agree with your comments about these lovely islands that we live in. We actually went with my daughter and her husband (a change for me to have an opportunity to look around) He went cross country on the outward journey through the villages and we all made comments similar to yours about what a wonderful heritage we have.

[LovelyLadyLux]

Lovely lovely LOVELY photos Grandad - WOW! Photos are great but the subject matter is also equally great too. Can't believe it all goes back to 1137 (can't hardly get my mind around anything that old) - Love the old castle and how it is now such a wonderful garden.

Did you get the last photo when you helicoptered in?

[Grandad]

Cheers LLL, glad you like the pictures

Yes we landed on the lawn of the big house so I was able to get the aerial shot
That one is actually thanks to Wiki and I hope I am not breaking any copy-rite law in borrowing it.

[Horus]

Very often the Wiki images are classed as 'creative Commons' which means that they can be used in an educational manner without asking permission, as your post is of an educational nature I see no problem with using it Grandad

[LovelyLadyLux]

Geez Grandad I was actually expecting you to say that YOU got the aerial shot parachuting down prior to your plane landing!

I like the shot too of the castle reflecting in the moat.

Pic #2 - Do you happen to know what kind of material was used on those chairs? They're definitely pre the era of having a cushion on the seat and the colours are muted so wondering what kind of fabric they'd be? And do you think horsehair was used?

And - how do you think they coped with the smell of horsehair over the years?

[Grandad]

That shot was one of my favourites LLL. I have to be honest though, I did a bit of tweaking on all my pictures because as it was generally cloudy the pictures tended to be a little dark. Here is the original of that picture.

I very slightly increased the sharpness and adjusted the lighting in PSE11 to achieve a softer image. Glad you like the result.

You are VERY observant regarding the chairs. I looked through all my pics and that is the only one with no cushions. Judging by the height of the arm rests it probably never had cushions but does not look very comfortable and very low. As for horse hair, that was used in all padded furniture until beyond Victorian times so I am sure that small settee would also be padded with horse hair. I am not sure that 'smell' was a problem. The hair would have been cleaned and dried before use and I have never been aware of any smell even in furniture at my grand parents home.

As for the coverings, I am sure they have been recovered over the years and are probably not that old on the scale of things....