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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