Bodiam Castle

“The popular ideal of a medieval castle.” — Charles Coulson

If you were asked to construct a castle, you would construct Bodiam Castle. It is the prototypical medieval castle: rectangular with round towers at the corners, moat, courtyard. Perhaps because this was just a minor castle, it did not turn into a sprawling defensive complex like many of its larger cousins. Although in ruins today, this beautiful castle is worth a visit if you're passing through East Sussex.

Built by Sir Edward Dalyngrigge in 1385 to defend the area from a French invasion during the Hundred Years War, Bodiam Castle was erected quickly and all in the same style, which accounts for its consistent design. No French invasion came during the Hundred Years War, but the castle did see action during the War of the Roses in 1483, and was slighted (as were many castles) during the English Civil War of the 17th century.  After that, it decayed into a picturesque ruin until restored in the 20th century.  In the 20th century, some defenses were erected surrounding the castle to defend the area from a feared German invasion (which, like the French invasion of 600 years earlier, never came).

Today it is worth visiting as a compact example of a medieval castle.  It is beautiful, you can climb all the way to the top, and small enough that it can be covered in its entirety within an hour or two.

The Battle of Hastings

An interesting place, but as much can be gained by staying at home and watching a documentary on the Battle of Hastings.

Pretty much what you'll be looking at when you visit: fields and sheep.

No battle has had a greater impact on the English-speaking peoples than the Battle of Hastings on October 14, 1066. The battle changed forever the nature of English, both the culture and the language.  England, which had previously been more of a Scandinavian country was to become more western European, with the Gallic influence of the conquering Normans. To celebrate his victory, William the Conqueror constructed an abbey at the site of this pivotal battle. We visited Battle Abbey and took the audio tour around the battlefield and abbey.

Battle Abbey is English Heritage, so admittance is free to English Heritage members. Parking is a nominal £1 for members. (£3.50 for non-members, but why would you visit England without joining English Heritage?) The audio tour is included in the price of admission (which is free for members), and we recommend audio tours with families, as it allows each member of the family to learn about the site and proceed at their own pace.

The tour takes you first through a museum which explores the circumstances and reasons for the invasion and lets you see and touch some of the weapons used by both sides. The English forces had defeated Norwegian forces at the Battle of Stamford Bridge just 3 weeks earlier — a battle that ended once and for all the Viking attacks that had harried England for the previous 300 years, and which would have today surely been considered one of the most important battles in English history were it not for the Battle of Hastings. What King Harold's forces did was remarkable, marching the entire length of England, 185 miles in 4 days, to defeat the invading Norwegians and kill their king, and they then turned around and force-marched back south to face William's invading Normans.

After the museum, you proceed to the battlefield and circle around below the hill where William had assembled his forces, and then back up the hill to the abbey, where the English forces defended. The fields are today used by grazing sheep, so you will find yourself dodging sheep dung throughout the walk. Still, you will learn much about how the battle proceeded on that fateful day.

More fields. The view up the hill from the Norman positions to the English.

When you return up the hill to the remains of the abbey (like all English abbeys, the abbey was destroyed by Henry VIII), you are pretty much left on your own, and while you can explore the ruins, no additional history is provided through the audio tour. It should also be noted that most of the property at the top of the hill is off-limits, as there is today an active school where the abbey once stood.

The remains of Battle Abbey.

The Battle of Hastings was no doubt of great importance, so visiting the battlefield seems like a good idea, but I am ambivalent about its suitability as a tourist attraction for families with children. I love history and therefore appreciate the site, but the visit is nothing spectacular; you are mainly walking around some fields dodging sheep dung and learning about the battle from the audio device. You would get as much by staying home and watching a documentary on the battle. The abbey was also fairly underwhelming, and there are much better specimens of ruined abbeys in England (Fountains Abbey is by far the best, but even Hailes Abbey, although almost completely destroyed, provides a better audio tour and a better education on life in a medieval monastery). I think a visit to Battle Abbey can probably be skipped by a family with limited time.

Canterbury Cathedral – Evensong

I have made no secret of my love of the English evensong services.  Whenever we travel to a place with a cathedral, we make a point of attending one of their evening services.  Canterbury Cathedral is one of the most famous and venerated cathedrals in Britain, so while in eastern Kent, we stayed the afternoon and attended the cathedral's evening program.

Christian services have been conducted at the site of Canterbury Cathedral for at least 1,400 years.  (Contemporary accounts say that it was built on the site of an even older Roman church, but modern archaeologists have been unable to confirm that.)  The current building was constructed in the late 11th century after the previous cathedral burned down in 1067.  To be frank, the cathedral shows its age.  It is beautiful, I cannot deny that, but much of it is covered with scaffolding, and it just looks old.  We will be revisiting Salisbury Cathedral later this trip, and I will see if my memory is playing tricks on me or not, or whether Salisbury really is in better shape than Canterbury.

At any rate, Canterbury is still an absolutely beautiful cathedral, and the evening service we attended was sung by the resident girls' choir accompanied by a lay choir.  It had been two years since I had attended an evensong service, and while I had remembered how lovely they are, I had forgotten just how lovely they are.  The choristers sounded like angels, and in the millennium-old quire (yes, another advantage of attending these evensong services is gaining access to the quire), it is truly a religious experience.  A pleasant time for prayer and reflection.  If I lived or worked near Canterbury Cathedral, I would attend every night.

For any families of religious persuasion, I recommend attending evensong services wherever you can when you visit England.

(Incidentally, something I discovered after the fact: girls have only been permitted to sing in Canterbury's choir for just 2 years.  When we visited, it was the girls' last performance of the year, and they were bidding farewell to five of their members.  The minister said it would be an emotional farewell, and now that I know how young the girls' choir is, I imagine several of the departing members were members of that first inaugural choir that sang in Canterbury Cathedral in 2014.)

Dover Castle

As the largest castle in England, Dover Castle is really a must-see.  But its size isn't the only thing that distinguishes it.  The history of the castle is second to none (with the possible exception of the Tower of London), having seen action from the 13th century to the 20th.  And because it has been in active use for all these centuries (and it was not destroyed during the English Civil War), it is relatively well-preserved.  Dress warmly, though, since it can get quite windy up at the top of the castle.

Few castles can boast of being able to withstand a nuclear attack, but Dover Castle was designated to be the regional seat of government in the case of a nuclear war.  For 900 years, Dover Castle has stood watch for England, repulsing waves of invaders over the centuries, from the French invasion in the 13th century to the German bombs of World War II.  Display cases at Dover Castle display weapons of war spanning its entire history, from medieval axe heads to Napoleonic cannons, to fragments of German bombs that were dropped on it.

The location of Dover Castle itself had been fortified for some 1,100 years before Henry II laid out his great castle there in the 12th century.  When you arrive, you will have to drive up some narrow, winding roads to get to the car park.  (You really should join English Heritage to get both free parking and free admission.)  From the parking lot, you are already within the Dover Castle military complex, and as you look up at one of the outer rings of defenses, you will see both Napoleonic cannons and WWII anti-aircraft guns on display.  From there, you can either climb up to the medieval castle, or down to the WWII bunkers.

The castle is large, and contains an interactive display about Henry II and the Angevin kings.  (You may not have heard of Henry II, but you have almost certainly heard of his sons, Richard the Lionheart and John I, both of "Robin Hood" fame.)  The main keep is massive, and many of the rooms have been decked out to give you some idea of what they were used for and how they looked.  There is no audio tour, so you will be able to proceed at your own pace and in whatever order suits you, but certainly make your way to the very top of the keep, where you will be rewarded with a bird's eye view of the entire area.

The underground bunkers and tunnels are less imposing to look at, but a couple of tours are offered through them to give you an idea of how they were used.  On your way down, you will pass the World War I defensive headquarters and the top of the famous double-helix staircase built during the Napoleonic era to get troops down to the beaches as quickly as possible in the case of a French invasion.  We took the shorter of two WWII tours, through the hospital tunnels.  The tour took about 20 minutes and was very good.  They simulated air raids knocking out the power, which I thought was a neat touch.  And it was a treat at the end to get to ascend back to the surface through the double-helix staircase I just mentioned.

We were staying in Kent, so Dover was just an hour away for us.  Dover is in the far southeast of England, so it's a pretty good drive from London, but certainly doable in a day trip even from there.  I do think Dover Castle is a good visit for the children because (1) it is a terrific castle as far as castles go, and (2) the history will excite any young boy of the age where he is infatuated with war (like our son, age 10).

Leeds Castle

Leeds Castle is a well-maintained castle that has been in continuous use since its construction in the early 1100’s. While it saw some action during The Anarchy of the 1100’s, it primarily served as a residence for the queens of England during the Plantagenet and Tudor eras, before passing into private hands, where it remained until 1974. It is today known as one of England’s most beautiful castles.

Most medieval castles fell into disrepair in the early gunpowder era. For castles that were kept up, they would have to have been in continuous use after the medieval period. We saw on our previous visit to England the Tower of London, which has been used continuously since the 11th century, and today we visited Leeds Castle, which has also been used continuously since its construction in the early 1100’s. Leeds Castle, in fact, was a private residence until 1974, so its plumbing and electricity are modern and up-to-date. As it has been well-maintained by its previous owners, it is known as one of England’s prettiest castles, more impressive by the fact of its age and history.

Leeds Castle has historically been known as a queen’s castle, having served as home to several queens and dowager queens of England, including Joan of Navarre and Catherine de Valois. It is fitting, therefore, that its last owner was also a woman, Lady Baillie. When she purchased the castle in the 1920’s, she spared no expense to repair, restore, and decorate the castle, so it is in jolly good shape. When we visited today, the banquet hall was being set up for a wedding banquet, and it looked grand indeed!

There are various parts to the grounds of Leeds Castle. After purchasing your tickets (sorry, it is neither National Trust nor English Heritage, so you will have to pay for your tickets), there is a 10-minute walk from the ticket office to the castle through some beautiful gardens. You could also take a “train” to the castle, but I do not recommend missing the walk. If you must, walk to the castle and take the train back to the start at the end of your stay.

The castle itself is built on 2 islands surrounded by a moat. The oldest part of the castle is on the far island, though there are also some ruins that originally protected the entrance on the outside of the moat. The drawbridges were replaced with permanent bridges several centuries ago, and various other parts have also been added or modified over the centuries. In the castle, there is an audio tour available in the gatehouse for £4. We are fans of audio tours when traveling with children, because it allows different members of the family to proceed at their own pace. The children always like to go a bit faster than the adults.

The castle tour does not take you through the entire castle complex, as much of it is still in use today, but it takes you through many of the most important living areas, which remain decorated as they were by Lady Baillie. You begin, however, in a Norman cellar, which dates all the way back to the early 1100’s. A bit of trivia I learnt ascending the steps from the cellar is that the steps were made uneven on purpose, to trip up invaders. Coincidentally, right after I mentioned this fact to my wife, she caught her foot on a step; and then I, having just watched her, did exactly the same on the same step!

Outside the castle and further on is a courtyard with a nice restaurant looking over the castle. As you walk up to the courtyard, if you turn around, you will be rewarded with some of the most majestic views of the castle and its surrounding moat.

Beyond the restaurant courtyard is a recreational area which contains a really good hedge maze. For whatever reason, children are always better at navigating the maze, so our kids made it to the middle well before we did. There is also an area where falconers put on falconry shows, which are always entertaining. Beyond that is a pavilion with a short movie about the Battle of Agincourt, and then a terrific playground for children. It’s a really good playground, and will provide parents with a well-deserved rest while their kids run around the faux-castle playground.

A note for disabled persons

Moreso than other castles, Leeds Castle does have accommodations for people in wheelchairs. While it would be impossible for wheelchairs to navigate the entire castle — as much as can be accommodated is, and there is a special movie for mobility-impaired visitors to see the parts that they are missing. Up in the recreational area, there is a good part of the playground that is designed for handicapped children, which was a very nice thought. And admission is reduced for disabled persons and their caregivers.