ENGLAND TRIP: Day 5: Part 1: Leeds Castle

On the 5th day we took a great bus tour to a number of places outside of London. The first stop was LEEDS CASTLE.  

Leeds Castle, set on two islands on the River Len in the heart of Kent in England, has been fortified for more than 900 years. It was built in 1082 and added onto in the 1500s. 

Henry VIII, Queen Mary I, Queen Elizabeth I,

Built in 1119 by Robert de Crevecoeur as a Norman stronghold, Leeds Castle descended through the de Crevecoeur family until the 1260s. What form this first castle took is uncertain because it was rebuilt and transformed in the following centuries.  In 1278, the castle became the property of King Edward I. 

VIDEOS IN THE CASTLE: 

We made several short videos while at Leeds Castle. The first video is an introduction to the castle from the outside. 

King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon lived here. It was gutted and renovated by a woman named Lady Bailley. She was an heir to the Standard Oil Company fortune (she inherited it through her uncle).

Many of the rooms were in a 1930s style, and nothing was left in the Tudor style. It was cool, however, to see where Henry VIII lived before Hampton Court, but disappointing that there was nothing left from his time.  The castle was voted "Britian's most beautiful castle" (on the outside).

The second video is in the Queen's bedchamber.

Fireplace has the "Tudor roses" on it- identifying it as built for Henry VIII's family

ANY GHOSTS IN THE CASTLE?  I didn't sense anything but according to the website "Haunted castles of Britain" there's a ghost of a big black dog that haunts the castle.  The website says "the ghost that is said to haunt the castle is a black dog, described by a witness as a 'curly-haired retriever' which would 'appear and disappear within moments, sometimes fading into a wall or passing through a closed door.' The dog has come to be associated with a death or other misfortune befalling a member of the castle owner's family.
This is strange given the fact that many years ago a woman was sitting by a window when she saw the dog disappearing into a wall. The woman went to investigate the creature and the window by which she had been sitting collapsed, the masonry landing on the spot where she had been sitting just moments before."

The third video is about the Banqueting Hall in Leeds Castle.