CHIDDINGSTONE CASTLE

Kent

Chiddingstone is, of course, a sham Castle.  Constructed around a Tudor manor house initially by Henry Streatfield around 1679.  His great-grandson, another Henry, rebuilt again in 1808, spending the phenomenal amount of £250,000 on turning the building into a "Gothick Castle". His son, inventively named Henry, carried on the process adding the towers and mock gatehouse (pictured).

The Castle became a school in 1936 and a hospital for the Services during the Second World War.  After the war it reverted to being a school and then was bought by Denys Eyre Bower who filled it with his collection of antiquities and opened it to the public in 1956.

Indeed it is the interior of Chiddingstone that is most interesting, with some unique Japanese lacquer-work and the infamous nude portrait of Nell Gwynn.  The village of Chiddingstone is beautiful in the extreme and is almost entirely owned by the National Trust, who surprisingly don't own the Castle which is open during the summer.

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2018