Scotney Castle

 

'Reflections of romance amidst the ruins.'

 

 

 Scotney Castle is a double dip trip for anyone who wants to experience a misty late winter excursion into the West Kent countryside. This National Trust property gives you not only a stately home but an ancient castle to boot barely a few hundred yards away. Virtually two for the price of one!

The castle lies a few miles south east of Tunbridge Wells off the A21, true Kentish Weald countryside replete with oast houses, white timbered cottages and rolling English countryside. We got there from Worthing by taking the high road across country via Lewes, a scenic route in itself.  Heathfield, Blackboys and Cross in Hand are some of the evocative sounding places on the way.

The National Trust property itself lies down a quiet Kentish lane near the village of Lamberhurst and covers a large area (770 acres) of rolling downland. Just after entering and parking up, it is a short walk to the entrance, shop and restaurant which was teeming with mid day half term visitors. Be aware that you may have to wait for a table at such a time. Once you pay your entry fee you turn left through a door and then into the grounds of the stately home which rears up to your left in front of an extensive lawn area. The house was designed by Anthony Salvin in Elizabethan style and built in 1837 for Edward Hussey 111.

 

 

 

 

 

It contains a complete tour of fully furnished rooms both upstairs and downstairs centring on the grand staircase ascending from the entrance hall. A cheery gentleman greets you at the door and gives you a large laminated card to guide you from room to room. Every room has a guide ready to answer your questions, sometimes eager to pre-empt your questions. Much of the house looks perfectly liveable in, albeit in a rather 1950ish kind of style and with a touch of the squire at home in his mansion look. As it is, you take a leisurely circuit of the large entrance hall, then round the ground floor with the usual mixture of enormous dining room tables, assorted assemblages of wine bottles, voluminous bookcases and copies of old magazines. A previous occupant of the house, Christopher Hussey was an architectural historian and writer for the 'Country Life' magazine. Then it’s out through the kitchen with its more modern decor and into a long thin corridor bounded by old photographs. Very interesting as Scotney Castle was a school for evacuated kids during the Second World War. Upstairs is a round of bedrooms in various shades mixed up with old fashioned bathrooms with those very Victorian white sinks.

 

Once you have had your stately home fix it’s time to visit an old medieval English Castle but this one is right on the doorstep, being the live-in before the stately home was built. So a saunter out the front door and a turn left takes you down winding paths to the moat inside which stands the original Scotney Castle on its very own 'island.' It is the focal point for the celebrated  surrounding gardens which boast displays of rhododendrons and azaleas in summer.

 

 

 

 

From the top of the hill you get a little peek of the ancient wonder drawing you in to its cute castleness witihn the moat. If you want a little sidetrack take a walk through the old quarry which was used as building material for the house. Here you can spot an array of snowdrops if you visit in February.

 

 

Intriguingly, the occupants of the stately home left the castle to go to rack and ruin deliberately as at the time it was all the rage to have a ruined castle or suchlike as a folly in your backyard. OK if you can afford it!

 

Our castle is on the small but very appealing side, part ruin and part a fully visitable up and down building. It does indeed stand on a little island in the middle of a moat, seductively separated from the mainland. Round the moat you can walk, taking a hundred photos until you get the perfect shot. The one with the castle in the foreground and the stately home sneaking into the background at the top of the hill is the one to go for. Once you’ve circumnavigated the moat and passed the dinky little boathouse that could be the start of a thousand adventures, you can wander over the bridge to the castle and find yourself in front of the main doorway. This is a kind of a house castle rather than a fully fledged battlemented warship of a castle ready to withstand the French army, the sort of castle you could treat as a weekend retreat rather than a place to stand 24 hour guard with your cauldron of boiling oil. Somewhere you could go fish on the lake in a little dinghy rather than practising knocking your opponents off horses with lances all day.