Scotney Castle

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A photograph of the castle and its gardens.

Scotney Castle is a country house with gardens in Kent, England. It belongs to the National Trust, who operate the property under the name "Scotney Castle Garden & Estate".

The gardens, which are a celebrated example of the Picturesque style, are open to the public. The central feature are the ruins of a medieval, moated manor house, Scotney Old Castle, which is on an island on a small lake. The lake is surrounded by sloping, wooded gardens with fine collections of rhododendrons, azaleas and kalmia for spring colour, summer wisteria and roses, and spectacular autumn colour.

At the top of the garden stands a house which was built to replace the Old Castle between 1835 and 1843. This is known as Scotney New Castle, or simply Scotney Castle, and was designed by Anthony Salvin. It is an early, and unusually restrained, example of the revived influence of Tudor architecture in 19th-century Britain.

[edit] History

Construction of the castle began in the 1370s.

Father Richard Blount, S.J. hid in the castle administering to Roman Catholics from 1591 to 1598 when Catholicism was illegal in England.

The castle grounds used to play host to Shakespeare productions, notably A Midsummer Night's Dream, with the actors appearing from behind the bushes, on cue.