Holiday in Cowden, Kent - Friday 8th May to Friday 15th May 2015

Self Catering Holiday Cottage.

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Day 4 - Monday 11th May

Today we visited one National Trust property and two properties in the Historic Houses Association.

Chartwell was bought by Winston Churchill in 1922 as a family home. After extensive alteration and modernisation the family moved in in 1924. Apart from during the war years it was the principal family home of the Churchills. In 1938 it was said to have 5 reception rooms, 19 bed and dressing rooms, 8 bathrooms, was set in an estate of 80 acres with 3 cottages and a floodlit and heated outdoor swimming pool.  The estate was presented to the National Trust after Churchill's death in 1965 and opened to the public in 1966.

                          Photographs from the gardens

                 Photographs of the house from the gardens

                 Photographs of the herb garden and the play cottage for daughter Mary.

        Photograph of kitchen garden with rhubarb in foreground.  Wall in background may have been partly built by Churchill

Chiddingstone Castle and Gardens was the home and collection display of Denys Eyre Bower (1905 - 1977). He owned the building from 1955 until his death.  When he died he bequeathed the property to the National Trust, but it did not come with sufficient endowment and they could not accept it.  A private trust was set up which includes members of the Streathfield family who owned the property before Denys Bower.  It is open for visits by the public and is available for hire for weddings and other occasions.

                 Exterior views of Castle and Orangery

                         Interiors of the Castle

                                               More interior views of Castle.

Hever Castle is the ancestral home of Anne Boleyn (second wife of Henry VIIIth.). It is open to the public.  It remains a moated castle/manor house and was acquired by the Boleyn family in 1462, having been built in the 13th century.  The Boleyn family remodelled the house as an Tuder manor house.  After Anne Boleyn's father's death in 1539 the property passed to Henry VIII.  Subsequently, the property fell into disrepair until it was acquired in 1903 by American multi-lillionaire William Waldorf Astor.  He remodelled it, inserting modern plumbing, electricity and apartments.  Since 1983 it has been owned by Broadland Properties Ltd and run as a tourist attraction with a hotel in the grounds.

                     Photographs of exterior and Internal Courtyard

                    Photographs of extensive gardens

                   Further photographs of gardens