The queen of castles where you can channel your inner princess
From widowed queens and political heavyweights to famous film stars and socialites, Leeds Castle has hosted them all. But it’s the 900-year history of female ownership, design and curation that sets this castle apart, reports Oliver Bennett
There’s a reason why Leeds Castle – in Kent, not in the north at all – has become such a go-to castle for international tourists. It has castellations, a moat and a drawbridge. Inside it has tapestries, beams, panels, flagstone floors and inevitably, a suit of armour. It was described by the historian Lord Conway in 1913 as “the loveliest castle in the world” – a phrase that follows it around like a waft of marketing mimosa.
Above all, this utterly dreamy castle is a triumph of the Anglo-picturesque that could have hardly have been perfected if it had been designed by a team from Disney or the Nikkatsu Corporation – and it’s practically in a suburb of London, near to Maidstone in a fortified circle of ring roads. Downton, Game of Thrones, Shrek – even Kind Hearts and Coronets, in which Leeds Castle played a part as the aristocratic seat ‘Chalfont’ – the castle is an evergreen inner-child pleaser. Somewhere deep, we all want to get medieval. In this, Leeds Castle can help.
I headed down to take in the enchanted scene. Leeds Castle is one of a handful of private castles in the country and it works its passage with aplomb. The walk from the car park reveals a franchise of Go Ape, Segway tours and a restaurant. There’s an aviary, falconry displays, a maze, vineyard and golf course – not to mention ‘Knight’s Glamping’: a gaggle of striped tents in which you can swive in peace and comfort. The cumulative hallucination is slightly like the TV classic The Prisoner – indeed, Elizabeth I, before being crowned Queen of England, was a prisoner at Leeds Castle.
Because it’s in that dip rather than stuck up on a hill, as you walk towards Leeds Castle it tantalisingly reveals itself. At the Game of Thrones-ily named Great Water, black swans sail mysteriously across the surface. Then the drawbridge entrance beckons. It’s very seductive.
My guide for the day, Christine, says that Leeds has always looked like the minds-eye image of a castle. “The old builders must have thought about landscaping and aesthetics even then,” she said. “Most castles are on high ground for defence. This is on two islands on a moat fed by the river.” Which makes it a superlative set-piece.
Christine regaled me with the historic highs and lows of the castle. “It had one skirmish in 1240,” she said. Even this scrap had a slightly cinematic quality. Edward II’s queen, Isabella, tried to enter the castle only to find it squatted by one Lord Badlesmere. Arrows flew. The enraged king besieged the castle, wrested it back, and beheaded Badlesmere. Queen Isabella then lived here until she died.
Instead of war and pestilence, Leeds Castle has a history as a jewel box of the aristocracy. It dates back to 1119 – last year was its 900th birthday, heralded with fireworks and feasts – although there was a manor house prior to that point in the first millennium. Location, location, location… even at the time of Alfred the Great.
But the truly interesting thing about Leeds is the strong female story that runs throughout the ages. Rather then the boiling oil-pouring, torture dungeons and clashing muskets of those butch castles that look like something out of Minecraft, Leeds has largely been female-owned and is generally more peaceful, artistic and fulsome as a result.
After becoming royal in 1278, Leeds Castle became a payoff for widowed queens, and was lived in by six regal medievals: Eleanor of Castile, Margaret and Isabella of France, Joan of Navarre, Anne of Bohemia and Catherine de Valois – a line-up of tough cookies who variously lived through the plague, murder, incarceration and accusations of witchcraft.
Quite unique as antiquity but needs expenditure large sum to make it habitable. Not a bath in place only lighting oil lamps and servants quarters down dungeon
In Tudor times Henry VIII used to come to Leeds Castle to see Catherine of Aragon, and 500 years ago this year, took his whole court on the way to the tournament of the Field of the Cloth of Gold in Calais, along with a mega-picnic that included 2000 sheep, 312 herons, 13 swans, 700 eels and three porpoises. Henry can be seen above a fireplace here, and will preside over anniversary celebrations this year.
Time wore on and Leeds was refurbished in 1822 by Fiennes Wykeham-Martin. But by the early 20th century it was slightly decrepit and came on the market. It wasn’t well known to the public but in 1924 William Randolph Hearst – the publishing tycoon and model for Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane – looked into buying it and was put off by his survey: “Quite unique as antiquity but needs expenditure large sum to make it habitable. Not a bath in place only lighting oil lamps and servants quarters down dungeon.”
His loss was the gain of Anglo-American heiress Lady Olive Wilson Filmer – later Lady Baillie – who bought Leeds Castle in 1926 and designed it anew. She frou-frou’d its interiors and gardens, employing Parisian interior designer Stéphane Boudin who had worked for the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and Jackie Kennedy, and art deco designer Armand Albert Rateau. Bascially, they gave it the zhuzh of all zhuzh’s. Leeds Castle became the party crib for the rich and famous for the next few decades.
Through the roaring twenties and antibellum thirties and after WWII, Lady Baillie kept the flame of those six medieval queens burning, restoring the castle’s gloriette addition so that it would look like a French 17th century castle, and adding a Hollywood makeover to befit her celebrity guests. “She lived here till 1974 as a second home and had legendary parties,” said Christine.
“Douglas Fairbanks Junior, Charlie Chaplin, James Stewart, Ian Fleming, Errol Flynn… they were all hosted here.” Political heavyweights like Anthony Eden shared Leeds Castle with Hollywood stars and aristocratic heavyweights. Cliveden was the other great venue of the time but Leeds was more discreet: Profumo was a guest when the scandal broke, and the moat is said to have protected him from the fourth estate. Perhaps that’s what Harry and Meghan need – a moat.
I nosed further around the castle. There were the usual accoutrements: that suit of armour, a four-poster bed and studded shutters that look over the moat and make you think of the fairytale Rapunzel. The corridors are experiences in themselves – moody passages that take you from room to gawp-worthy room.
One can certainly feel the elegiac atmosphere of that era in Leeds Castle today – as well as some architectural filtering. For Lady Baillie was a genius at what we would now call ‘curation’. The Queen’s Room was recreated by her as if it were Catherine de Valois’s rooms in 1422, with embroidered damask and beams – all at a time when Tudor-gabled semi-detached houses were starting to be built around London. In the gloriette, the half-timbered Fountain Court appears to have an ancient splendour but is a Lady Baillie addition. She was superbly on-trend.
And as if to show that she was no mere romantic, Lady Baillie was also a whizz with cutting-edge mid-century tech. Under-floor heating, en-suite bathrooms and a swimming pool with a wave machine could be found at Leeds Castle. She fitted perfect Art Deco bathrooms in Russian onyx, now witnessed over ropes and via mirrors – making historic voyeurs of us all. “Her aura is still here,” said Christine. “She was a genius and I feel like I’m employed by her.”
As one of the great chatelaines, Lady Baillie had a menagerie and was particularly fond of birds. Zebras, llamas, peacocks roamed – and those red-beaked black swans of the Great Water, imported from Australia. One of Leeds’ oddest attractions is a 100-strong dog collar collection – the only concession to the typical torture chamber aesthetic of your average castle. Her aviary remains, near a yew maze in the shape of a crown and an over-the-top grotto with shell-mermaids.
Lady Baillie resisted the National Trust, snaffling all those hard-to-heat piles as the uppers lost their crusts. At her death in 1974, she bequeathed Leeds Castle to the nation and it is now the Leeds Foundation. The castle washes its face with tourism and events, so as to pay the 30,000 a year electricity bill and the upkeep of the expensive Kentish ragstone walls. Inevitably, questions come up about history as entertainment and authenticity.
“The trustees are always fighting about it,” said Christine. “But it’s a balance.” And Leeds Castle isn’t fossilised but still makes history. In 1978 it hosted Cyrus Vance, Moshe Dayan, and Mohammed Ibrahim Kamel – the first time the US, Israel and Egypt had say together to work on the Palestine issue – and in 2004 Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern worked on the Peace Process here. And some castles work their fun side even harder. Warwick Castle owned by Merlin Entertainment: now that’s a real crowd-pleaser.
Some might complain about the “theme park” aspects of Leeds Castle, but since when wasn’t it a theme park? Leeds Castle has long been a haunt of socialites and regal celebrities, whether in Tudor ruffs or taffeta frocks. That’s what makes the “Castle of Queens, Queen of Castles” such a delight – and such a powerful place in which to channel one’s inner princess.
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