Hever Castle
"Quite
apart from its associations with the romance and tragedy
of Anne Boleyn, this stately building was worthy of its
good fortune. Standing in a charming nook of the county
which claims the proud title of "the garden of England"
set in an undulating countryside rich in grassy meadows
and wooded groves, and encircled by the placid waters of
the River Eden, Hever Castle, with its ancient moat, its
noble entrance gateway, its oriel windows, its embattled
walls, its spacious courtyard, its old- world gardens,
did indeed deserve to be rescued from the ravages of the
eroding hand of time. Although parts of the building
are suggestive of the architecture of the reign of
Edward III, the structure as a whole is a splendid
specimen of the castellated mansion of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries, with here and there, as in the
portcullis grooves and the arrow slits of the walls, a
suggestion of those turbulent days when a baron's castle
needed to be something more than a home."
Extract from "Royal Castles of England" (Open Library)
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