Chilham Castle
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Chilham Castle is a manor house and keep in the village of Chilham, between Ashford and Canterbury in the county of Kent, England (grid reference TR066535).
The Norman keep of the Castle, which is the oldest building in the village and still inhabited, dates from 1174 and was said to have been built for King Henry II. But archaeological excavations carried out in the 1920s suggest that it stands on the foundations of a much older Anglo-Saxon fortification, possibly dating from the 5th century, and there is evidence of earlier Roman habitation in the vicinity.
The Jacobean building, now known as the Castle, was completed in 1616 for Sir Dudley Digges. There is a long-standing tradition that it was designed by Inigo Jones though the experts differ on this. It is one of the finer mansions in the south-east and commands exceptional views across the valley of the River Stour, Kent. The gardens, said originally to have been laid out by John Tradescant the elder, were redesigned twice in the 18th century. Under James Colebrooke (who bought the estate from the Digges family) fine vistas were created stetching to the river and, under Thomas Heron (who acquired the estate from Colebrooke's son Robert) Capability Brown made further recommendations for change, some of which were implemented. Chilham Castle was purchased by James Wildman in 1794. It was sold by James Beckford Wildman in 1861 to cover debts for the family estates in the West Indies. The present terracing, altered in the 19th & 20th centuries, leads down to a fishing lake dating from the time of Charles Stewart Hardy in the 1860s/70s. The walls to the grounds date mostly from the 18th century, although the two gatehouses were only added in the early 1920s (replacing a very different 19th century one)
It was recently owned by John Whyte-Melville-Skeffington, 13th Viscount Massereene & Baron of Loughneagh, 6th Viscount Ferrard & Baron Oriel of Collon in Ireland & Baron Oriel of Ferrard in the United Kingdom. Chilham Castle is currently owned by Stuart Wheeler who lives there with his wife Tessa and his three daughters, Sarah, Jacquetta, and Charlotte.
The site now hosts the Chilham Park Equestrian Centre.
[edit] Trivia
- Jane Austen was a frequent visitor to Chilham Castle while it was owned by the Wildman family
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