We were just down in Royal Tunbridge Wells to visit some friends. My other half just read I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (who also wrote The Hundred and One Dalmations) and that features the nearby Scotney Castle so we decided to check it out.
Scotney is an old country house. The original castle was built in the 14th century and a new house was built on the hill above in Victorian times. The owners left the old castle as a ruin surrounded by a large moat.
You cross the moat by a stone bridge. It is basically a very large garden ornament and part of an extensive garden that was in full flower. They have lots of colourful bushes.
I am not much of a gardener, but I could appreciate it anyway. These days you can use apps like Google Lens to identify plants.
The family left the property to the National Trust so we get free entry as we are members.
Although it is a big house it still feels like a home and there are lots of relics of family life there. They had a lot of books.
They collected art, but there are also a lot of family portraits. I think this may be the last lady owner with the old castle behind her.
That lady liked cats and had this fountain built.
As with many such houses there is a large kitchen garden where they would grow much of their food. There are fruits trees around the walls. I expect there would have been less grass back then as they would have it full of crops.
The old vine house where they grew grapes is falling down. They are raising money to restore it.
There is a nice cafe behind the house where we had lunch with lots of space to sit outside. We had a walk in the woods on our way back to the car. When we arrived there was a sign to say that the car park was fully booked. We did not know that was necessary, but when we went to the gate they directed us to the overflow car park that had plenty of space and was only a short walk from the house. It was fairly busy there, but then it was a lovely day. You could spend half a day exploring the place.
The castle has appeared in various films and TV shows including the recent Sandman series.
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What a gorgeous outing @steevc!
How glorious your weather.
How lovely you got image of the kitty 🐈 at the fountain!⛲️
I could take a trip down South from Leeds sometime.
It is a nice place if you are in the area. Of course there is no shortage of historic buildings. If you are in Kent you could even visit Leeds Castle.
The weather was great yesterday, but today was a lot cooler, so we were lucky.
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It’s probably been a couple of decades since we visited Leeds Castle. @bitterirony ’s guitar instructor David Brandon performed there.
I'm not sure I've been, but I always think it's odd that it's so far from the city of Leeds.
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Absolutely stunning place!! I remember being there many years ago. I used to live in Canterbury decades ago so I took many trips to these places. This, as well as Leeds Castle (which is not in Leeds haha), are among my tops places to visit. That reflection photo is amazing !!
We really liked it and so did our friends who had never been despite living nearby. Well worth a visit.
Wow, that is pretty impressive! I like the proper moat around it.
It's a bit fairytale and you can see why people would want to film there.
For sure!
mmm... I can't remember if I've been before. The name sounds familiar and all the castles look quite similar.
The first image is beautiful, love the reflection
I'm not sure if I had heard of it before, but it was worth a visit. We have so many lovely country houses and it's usually an excuse for a coffee and cake. We get value from our National Trust membership.
We used to have NT membership, it's great to force us to get out more. We have English Heritage at the moment, got it when we went down to Cornwall last year. Need to make the most of it before it expires in a few months time. We still need to go to Stonehenge which is pretty much down the road from us.
We had that previously. Maybe when I retire we could get both as we will have more time to explore.
Those bushes look very much like azaleas which are in full bloom around here too. Very nice, and lush looking. A fascinating place to visit.
I think they had azaleas as well as rhododendrons and others. They must have a team of gardeners.
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That's a truly beautiful castle; I'd love to visit one of those in the future.
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No wonder it featured in a bunch of shows. It looks quite fairy-taly :)
Definitely. I think they partly created the 'ruin' to look good.
It would be interesting to think about all the stories those walls could tell. I love being around such a historical old ruins.
Que castillo mas preciosooooo
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