Hovering around Hever Castle in Kent

Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Kent

Hever Castle was the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, mother of Queen Elizabeth I and the woman whose face launched the Anglican Church of England. It is tucked away in the emerald folds of the Kentish countryside, just a stone's throw away from Penshurst Place whose most famous resident was Anne's contemporary, the courtier-poet Sir Phillip Sidney who wrote a beautiful poem immortalizing the ancient pile ("To Penshurst"). When, over a year ago, my friend Stephanie and I had taken one of our frequent detours on our Sunday sightseeing routine in the UK, we had strayed onto a path that led to Hever, only to arrive at its lovely Tudor gatehouse and find it closed for the winter. So I was particularly happy to actually get within its gates.

By medieval standards, Hever is tiny. I have toured castles far more impressive in size and grandeur (Glamis Castle in Scotland comes to mind, as, of course, closer to London, is Windsor). but then this wasn't owned by royalty. It was the family home of one of the most ambitious of the monarch's underlings, Thomas Bullen, whose father Geoffrey had purchased the property and surrounding acreage as a family home. It passed into the hands of the conniving Thomas who would not draw the line at pimping his daughters Anne and Mary to the King just so he could swell his wealth and rise in royal stature. A really sinister portrayal of him is played superbly by Nick Dunning in the HBO series The Tudors which Llew and I have been watching on DVD. He lies buried in adjoining St. Peter's Church, Hever, which a lot of visitors also enter.

His spirit was more than evident at Hever, a pretty ivy-covered, double-moated castle with the cutest Tudor entry courtyard I have ever seen just past the drawbridge--all exposed black gables and stone turreted tower. Inside, there is some of the most ornate linen-fold wooden panelling I have ever seen--not for the Bullens the ordinary kind as found at Hampton Court or Sutton House in London's East End--this is embellished superbly with aristocratic symbols. There are paintings on the wall that depict the pomp and splendour that was lavished upon King Henry each time he came along for a sleepover. Indeed his bedroom is the coziest and the brightest--large windows (unusual for Tudor homes) threw light upon his 'tester' bed--I bet there was no pun intended there!

Every attempt has been made to revive the spirit of the ill-fated Anne Boleyn through portraiture, wax models (as at Madame Tussaud's), her own personal Book of Hours which poignantly has the words "Le Temps Viendra, je Anne Boleyn" inscribed on its first page--did she have a premonition that her time would come? Anne was especially fluent in French which she considered her first language having spent her formative years at the French court where her father dispatched her so she could acquire sophisticated European ways and eventually wow an English monarch who was best known for his roving eye. Elaborate family trees trace the origin of some of the times' key players and I always come away from such exhibits learning just one more tidbit. For instance, I could never remember what made Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots 'cousins'--the family tree allowed me to see that Mary was the daughter of Henry's sister Margaret--hence Mary was Elizabeth's father's sister's daughter. Still, despite all the memorabilia from Tudor and Elizabethan times, I came away thinking I'd learned more about the Astors.

That is because in the early 20th century, Hever passed into the hands of the American William Astor who made his fortune in fur trading. For some reason, at that time, Americans seemed to think that getting their hands on England's real estate would increase their own stature and vied to make property investments across the pond (consider this: William Randolph Hurst, the Californian publisher-millionnaire bought nearby Leeds Castle; the Vanderbilts went one step further and arranged their daughter Consuelo's marriage to the then Duke of Marlborough so they could get their hands on Blenheim Palace--poor thing had a miserable time until the couple divorced, but not before the Vanderbilts poured their ample funds into restoring what was then a crumbling pile. These bits of Anglo-American trivia have, somehow, stuck in my mind from past travels in the UK). The top floors of Hever are devoted to an exhibition about the Astors and there are a bunch of paintings and pictures depicting the clan way into the 20th century smiling for the cameras against the Castle's ivy-clinging backdrop.

Hever's Gardens are just as special as the House itself--there is a beautiful Rose Garden, an ornately laid-out Italianate Garden, a Half Moon Fountain and sweeping lawns that dip into a lake that boaters made idyllic. Children giggled in the Water Maze and in the other old-fashioned amusement area for there is a great deal to keep them occupied.

Close by is the pretty and very tiny village of Chiddingston which my guide book described as the kind of place from which you expect Agatha Christie's Miss Marple to emerge from behind a hedge. It is a one-horse village with just three large structures--a stone church, a gabled guildhall and a Castle Inn that adjoins Chiddingston Castle, but taken together, the three present a chocolate box image of the quintessential English country village and are well worth a visit.
I saw a determined group of walkers, led by an equally focussed guide, disappear behind a corpse--no doubt, they were in search of the Chidding Stone that gives the village its name.

In the evening, when the day came to a close, my cousin Cheryl and her husband David who live on the Isle of Sheppey provided a snack supper. It was great to see them and their ageing cats, Morgy and Buttons, again and to catch up on their lives. As we ate in their living room, I enjoyed a view of the North Sea along the Minster Lees waterfront.

My travels outside London have come to an end. I am hoping I will have good weather as I spend the next few days dipping into lesser-known bits and pieces of my favorite city.