SALTWOOD CASTLE

Kent

Saltwood is perhaps the most important Castle in England that is not open to the public.  Owned until his death this year (1999) by Alan Clark MP, it has been closed to the public since the mid-1980s, which is a great pity indeed.

Saltwood is in a near perfect state of preservation.  The curtain wall we see today was begun by Henry de Essex during the reign of Henry I.  A keep was added in the late 12th century, which was converted into a hugely strong Gatehouse in the 1380s.  At this same time a great deal of work was done on the curtain walls and domestic buildings.

On the death of Henry de Essex, Saltwood took its most important role in history.  It was here in December 1170 that four knights, William de Tracey, Reginald Fitzures, Hugh de Morville and Reichard le Breton, stopped on their journey from the court of King Henry II in France to meet with the then owner, Ranulf de Broc.  They then travelled to Canterbury and murdered Archbishop Thomas Beckett inside the Cathedral before heading back to Saltwood and then back to France.  Two of them are said to haunt the area.

In 1380 Saltwood was badly damaged by an earthquake, and another followed 200 years later. The Castle remained in bad condition and the Civil War passed by unannounced.  It wasn't until the 1930s that resoration began.  It was another of Kent's superb rennovations, and what we are left with today is one of the greatest of all Castles - inaccessible aside from views of the exterior walls.

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2001