leeds castle

Saturday I took a daytrip to Leeds Castle (in Kent, not Leeds...) and Canterbury. This posting is dedicated to the castle.

The castle was initially built in 857 AD and subsequent parts have been added since then. The castle sits on two small islands in the river Len, a natural moat. The castle became royal in 1278 as part of the Queen of England's dower - what a queen got when she was widowed. It then gained a reputation as a "ladies castle." It has been held by six medieval queens. Henry VIII used the castle as a country manor, and his first wife (of six) Catharine of Aragon spent a lot of time in the stony fortress.

In the 1920s an American Lady Baillie bought the property and set about restoring the castle and grounds. Today the inside of the castle is partly tailored to her 1920s style and partly to the historic time periods the castle existed through.

We arrived by bus at 10:30 a.m. On the stroll through the grounds to the park we encountered both swans and peacocks famously present on the grounds:

An albino peacock!

Upon crossing over the bridged moat, this is the sight you are greeted with:

Below is a washroom recreated to the time of King Henry VII - this would have been the kind of tub Queen Catharine used. The portrait on the right is of Lady Baillie and her two daughters.

The room to the left is Lady Baillie's personal bedroom. The room on the right is the library.

Outside the castle we wandered around the grounds for a bit. By this time the sky had cleared up and the sun was super bright.

We found a proper English garden that reminded me of a mix between Peter Rabbit and Alice in Wonderland. And a bit further on we found a hedge maze and managed to reach the center where you could climb a stone mound to see the maze you had just come through.

Left to right: Kim, me, Christina, Elena

After tour hours roaming around through the castle and grounds (we all agreed we could have spent the entire day there exploring) we hopped on a mini train/tram and rode the scenic route back to the bus that would take us to Canterbury.

And we also saw this peacock that got really close to us. Pretty neat.

To read about the second part of the day and see pictures of Canterbury, click here.