Tag:castle

Canterbury & Leeds Castle

Day 3 in London and we were taking a bus tour to Canterbury and Leeds Castle.   As the tour didn’t leave till 8.30 am, and it was just the two of us, we decided to take the train in.  Woodside (on the northern line) to Euston Station, swap lines to the Victoria Line, get off at Victoria Station, and it was an 8min walk to Victoria Coach Station.  Victoria Coach Station is a big bus terminal where all the national line buses leave from as well as the tour buses. 

Leeds Castle

We were travelling with Evan Evans tours for our tour, and our first stop was Leeds Castle.  Constructed in 1119 during the reign of William the Conqueror’s son Henry 1, the Castle was a Norman stronghold. However, it was also the private property of six of England’s medieval queens; a palace used by Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon; a Jacobean country house; a Georgian mansion; an elegant early 20th-century retreat for the influential and famous; and in the 21st century, it has become one of the most visited historic buildings in Britain.

Leeds Castle
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Maison Jansen

The last private owner was Hon. Olive, Lady Baillie, a wealthy Anglo-American heiress who acquired Leeds Castle in 1926 when it was sold to pay death duties.  In the 1930s, Lady Baillie entrusted the design of her interiors to Stephane Boudin (1888-1967), president of Maison Jansen, a leading design firm in Paris. He was considered the foremost designer of grand interiors in the French taste, and his other clients included the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Jacqueline Kennedy. The glamorous and luxurious interiors he created at Leeds Castle from 1932 onwards can still be seen today. Lady Baillie’s bedroom suite is a high point of his work, with its delicate Louis VIX style panelling. Leeds Castle History

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Landscaped gardens

The castle’s grounds include 500 acres of parkland and beautifully landscaped gardens with swans and ducks swimming around the lake.  Shortly before Lady Baillie died in 1974, she put plans in place to create a charitable foundation and transferred the castle and grounds to it.  The foundation now manages the castle and attracts around 600,000 visitors a year.

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Canterbury

Leaving Leeds Castle, we travelled to Canterbury to visit Canterbury Cathedral. The cathedral is the ‘mother’ church of the worldwide Anglican community. Unfortunately, scaffolding covered part of the outside, so it wasn’t terribly photogenic (the perils of visiting places in the offseason is that’s when they do repairs). The cathedral is over 900 years old, with the Quire and stained glass windows dating back to the 12th century.

Canterbury & Leeds Castle
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Canterbury & Leeds Castle
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Canterbury & Leeds Castle
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Thomas Becket

The cathedral is most famous for the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in 1170. After a long-lasting dispute, King Henry is said to have exclaimed, “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?” four knights set off for Canterbury and murdered Thomas in his own cathedral. A sword stroke was so violent that it sliced the crown off his skull and shattered the blade’s tip on the pavement. The murder took place in what is now known as The Martyrdom. Shortly afterwards, miracles were said to occur, and Canterbury became one of Europe’s most important pilgrimage centres. Cathedral History

Canterbury & Leeds Castle

The interior is beautiful, and I loved the ornate ceiling over the Quire – amazing to think the workmanship was from Mason’s 1400 hundred years ago!  All handtools!

Canterbury & Leeds Castle
Days End

After leaving the Cathedral, we headed for lunch. It was really windy out, and we couldn’t find any tables and chairs free inside any of the cafes. We finally ended up going to Burger King. Bad choice. I felt sick for the rest of the afternoon.  From Canterbury, the bus took us to Dover. It was a big bucket list tick for me like Stonehenge, the Eiffel tower, and the northern lights. My father always talked about the white cliffs of Dover and the Vera Lyn song. In fact, the White Cliffs Of Dover was played at his funeral. 

Biggest disappointment of the whole trip.  We had a 15 photo-op stop-off. The guide said quote, “it’s not the best place to see them, but it gives you a look. You have 15 mins” WTF?? If that’s all we get, why bother stopping there??? She was right; it was a crappy location, and I didn’t take one picture on my camera. Just happy snaps on my phone (I was starting to dislike bus tours, and by the end of our trip, I had sworn I would never do another one, more on that later)

© Bevlea Ross