Bodiam Castle
Many visitors attest that Bodiam is the most romantically set castle in England. Its golden stone walls and fairy-tale towers seem to float on a misty moated lake, surrounded by a dream-like Arthurian landscape. Yet it remains relatively unknown, hidden as it is, in a quiet part of the Sussex countryside.
Bodiam was completed in 1385, quite late in castle terms, one of a number commissioned during the Hundred Years War against France. It has all the requisites of a standard castle: gunports, murder-holes, portcullises, etc, but somehow the builders seem to concentrate on its beauty, and luckily it was never tested for its strength! Its main purpose was to imprison French knights, but it ended up a security store for England’s most valuable export, wool.
Over the centuries Bodiam fell into ruin until it was bought in 1916 by Lord Curzon who restored it and left it to the National Trust. His wife Grace is said to have accepted his proposal of marriage on seeing Bodiam for the first time. Monty Python fans might be interested to know that Bodiam was a location for the medieval movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It was also used in episodes of Robin of Sherwood.