The Most Beautiful Castle in England

Leeds Castle in Kent is often said to be one of England's most beautiful castles, and when I first saw it in a travel brochure I thought it looked amazing and have been wanting to go since we got here. It is a beautiful castle, set on a lake and surrounded by acres of well maintained gardens, but because it looks so wonderful in its brochures (with photos from the sky) I kind of felt a little disappointed when I first saw it - maybe I was expecting the sky view, I don't know!! I still found it a lovely place to visit, and a pretty spectacular castle and the walk in, although long and unexpected, was especially beautiful.

I especially liked its symmetrical look from the front! The castle was started in the early 12th century but its present appearance is a result of centuries of rebuilding and extensions. It was a royal castle for many years and one of Henry VIII's favourites and he visited here often, mostly with his Queen, Catherine of Aragon (1st wife) and he escaped the London plague here.

Our tour was very interesting, but again I didn't take a lot in, although it helped a bit that Lani was entertained by a worksheet they gave her - finding items in each room, but we still had to move pretty quickly to keep them happy! Our tour started down in the cellar.

I loved this shoe cupboard in Lady Baillie's dressing room, which was designed in the late 1920s and had up-to-date technology, such as under floor heating in the bathroom, marble floors and walls and built in lighting in the cupboards! Lady Baillie (1899 - 1974) owned Leeds Castle and was the last person to live here. When she died she left the castle to the nation under the charitable trust of the Leeds Castle Foundation. To read more about Lady Baillie and Leeds Castle go here.

Lady Baillie's bedroom, designed by Stephane Boudin in 1936. It is in the style of the French Regency and Boudin would send his designs over from Paris for her approval. Everything was custom made to her requirements, the bed even has built-in reading lights!!!

{A massively thick door way!}

{Always a favourite - the library, this was one of the nicest I've seen.}

I loved the library and the shoe cupboard, however this room really did steal my heart, how great would it be to have an elegant dining room pre-set ALL the time!! Oh it's just a dream come true - it looked beautiful too!

It was a beautiful castle, inside and out, but I'm not quite sure if I would call it the most beautiful - not just yet anyway!!

Emily was happy to be outside again - free to run where she likes!

There was a lot more to do here than I thought there would be - a whole days worth of activities really, the only problem was most of these took place on the far side of the castle grounds, and when we went there to get lunch there were wasps everywhere - I have never seen so many! It was pretty much impossible to even eat anything, kind of spoilt it really. Gail, Phil and June left shortly after this because they had a few other things to see in the area, but we decided to stay a little longer and take a look at the maze and playground area.

{I like the castle from from this angle}

{This English Cottage Garden was lovely, especially for little girls to run around in!}

There was also a bird aviary here, with quite a lot of different birds in it. The girls enjoyed looking at them more than I thought they would, and I especially enjoyed watching Toco Toucan - It really looks like their beaks are just some plastic tube someone has taped to their face - it doesn't look like it belongs at all - fascinating really!!!

{We didn't attempt the maze, but I would have really liked too - I love mazes!}

The play ground was pretty good actually, apart from the wasps... they were everywhere again and so unfortunately it was a very quick play for the girls and then we were outta there, although there were heaps of people around playing - I just didn't think it was worth risking a wasp sting - I still can't believe how many there were, and some people didn't really even seem to care.

It was getting late into the day and we were ready to head home anyway, the girls were asleep in the prams after about 5 minutes of heading out - they were exhausted! We had a lovely day out. (If you would like to see the magical sky view go to www.leeds-castle.com)