Lullingstone Castle

Lullingstone Castle is historic mansion, set in an estate in the village of Lullingstone and the civil parish of Eynsford in the English county of Kent. It is now home to the Hart Dyke family.

Mentioned in the Domesday Book, the present house was started in 1497. Henry VIII and Queen Anne were regular visitors to the Manor House. Though its Tudor brick gatehouse is one of the oldest in England, what survives of the house is largely of the Queen Anne era.

The surrounding park was previously a fenced deer park, with the castle serving as a hunting lodge. It contains some of the oldest oak trees in Britain, wildflowers, a medieval church (St Botolph's, with the oldest stained glass window in England) and a walled garden, and used to contain Lullingstone Roman Villa. This walled garden - previously a Herb garden designed by Eleanour Sinclair Rohde - has recently been converted into a "World Garden of Plants" by the Castle's current heir (and 20th generation of the Hart Dyke's), plant hunter Tom Hart Dyke. That conversion was the subject of the BBC2 series Save Lullingstone Castle. It and the castle are open to the public.

External links

* [http://www.lullingstonecastle.co.uk/ Lullingstone Castle]