Chiddingstone Castle

En un regard

Le château en bref

Chiddingstone Castle stands to the west of the village of Chiddingstone, in the Eden Valley, in the heart of Kent. Despite its name and its battlements, it is not a medieval fortress: it is a seventeenth-century house, long known as High Street House, which the Streatfeild family gradually transformed into a Gothic-style castle. The brick house rebuilt around 1670 was partly altered around 1760, then extensively remodelled from 1803 by the architect William Atkinson for Sir Henry Streatfeild. The façades were then given towers, crenellated parapets and traceried windows, while a landscaped park with a lake, cascade, grottoes and a sham bridge replaced the formal gardens. The name "castle" only became established in the mid-nineteenth century. After the estate was sold in 1938, the building housed a school and was then requisitioned during the Second World War. Bought in 1955 by the collector Denys Eyre Bower, it was bequeathed by him to the nation on his death in 1977. A charitable trust now runs it as a museum: Egyptian, Buddhist and Japanese collections and Stuart and Jacobite memorabilia, with a tearoom and grounds open to the public.