Step back in time and enjoy some spectacular British castles and palaces in our pick of the bunch from Make The Most Of Your Time In Britain Dropdown content...
On the surface,
However, the castle is also home to what one British newspaper has dubbed the scariest tourist attraction in the country. The castle dungeon, where senior Royalists were detained during the English Civil War, now has a Black Death theme, complete with strikingly realistic decaying bodies, torture chamber and medieval medical equipment, not to mention crowds of leeches, creepy chanting monks and gallons of (fake) blood. It is all brought to life by a devilish cast of actors, who take obvious delight in creating a gloomy and ghoulish atmosphere.
Warwick Castle, Warwick www.warwick-castle.co.uk.
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Ask any five-year-old to draw you a castle and you'll probably end up with a version of Bodiam Castle in
Historians, you see, can be a tad sniffy about Bodiam, claiming it's little more than a beefed-up manor house rather than a "proper" castle. For starters the moat, seemingly a tricky barrier for the assumed French invaders, could have been drained in a few hours by a man with a shovel. Then there are the thin walls, the vulnerable large windows and the lack of a proper drawbridge. Yet gripes like these rather miss the point. Its owner, local bigwig Sir Edward Dallingridge, had little intention of holing up inside and pouring boiling oil through the murder holes when the castle was completed in 1385. For him Bodiam was about impressing the neighbours and displaying the new-found wealth he had obtained by plundering French villages.
What really sets Bodiam apart, though, is its unspoilt exterior and the sweeping views from its battlements. It's a location manager's dream (it played a key role in Monty Python and the Holy Grail) and just a few hours here will set your imagination into overdrive - you half expect toothless peasants to be tilling the fields or to see a dragon swoop overhead. For the kids, there are plenty of ye olde activities to take part in, from dressing up in medieval garb to archery and falconry displays.
Bodiam Castle, near Robertsbridge, East Sussex, www.nationaltrust.org.uk/bodiamcastle.
Stokesay Castle with garden and guardhouse @ Snaphound Photography/Shutterstock
Sitting in lush
And it is the domestic rather than military nature of Stokesay that gives it its particular charm, and enables it to sit so very prettily in this verdant landscape. The great hall, which dates from Lawrence's time, is spanned by a massive timber-framed roof, and still has its original interior staircase. Instead of a fireplace, there's an octagonal hearth in the centre of the room. Elsewhere, the north tower has its original tiled floor, and the gatehouse features seventeenth-century wall paintings; until the time of Charles I, Lawrence's descendants were responsible for the attractive development of the castle.
After this point, Stokesay was used as base for the king during the Civil War, and was then handed to the parliamentarians without any significant fighting taking place. Having survived its long history conflict-free, this overwhelmingly attractive and eccentric collection of buildings was thus preserved for future visitors.
Stokesay is 7 miles northwest of Ludlow, Shropshire www.english-heritage.org.uk.
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Perched on a jagged outcrop of granite, and framed by heather-smothered hills,
Yet the castle's later history is wonderfully preserved, offering an alternative to that blood-and-guts image. Mary, Queen of Scots was crowned in the Chapel Royal in 1543, and the Great Hall where she held lavish feasts is still there. It remains a majestic space, with enormous walls, high oriel windows, and a fine oak hammer-beam roof, encrusted with vivid stone carvings. The castle is also painstakingly reproducing the set of 33 gorgeous hand-carved oak medallions that once adorned the ceilings of the Palace. The replicas will eventually return to the ceiling of the King's Presence Hall, while a special gallery is being created for the originals.
Then there are the famous Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries, medieval gems being recreated for the castle by weavers at West Dean College. It remains to be seen if Gibson, or the ghost of William Wallace, will make an appearance at the unveiling in 2014.
Stirling Castle, Castle Wynd, Stirling 01786/450000, www.stirlingcastle.gov.uk.
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Ghosts stalk the corridors of
It was Thomas Wolsey, during the reign of Henry VIII, who transformed what was a large private house - built as a grange for the Knights Hostpitallers in the thirteenth century - into the impressive complex that we see today. The palace was a striking, modern centrepiece for the king's rule, used to impress and entertain foreign dignitaries and, of course, house his various wives in lavish rooms.
Even today, it's impossible not to be enchanted by the architecture and design of the buildings and grounds. Rivalling the ghosts as the palace's most famous attraction is the trapezoidal maze, planted at the end of the seventeenth century as a place for courtiers to lose themselves when needing to escape palace politics.
Hampton Court Palace, Hampton Court, Surrey, www.hrp.org.uk/hamptoncourtpalace.
Top image: Stokesay Castle with garden and guardhouse @ Snaphound Photography/Shutterstock