The lake, Chiddingstone Castle, Kent

Doreen's 89th birthday today so it was her day to choose what she would like to do. In the end we went to Chiddingstone Castle for the day, enjoying a coffee and scone before looking around the Castle.

The scone score, unfortunately, was rather mediocre, it tasted rather doughy, was quite small but accompanied by masses of jam. I awarded it 30/44, not one of the best scores I've recorded.

The Castle improved the more we saw of it. The last owner, one Denys Eyre Bower, was an eccentric collector of objects from Japan, the Stuarts and Jacobites, Bhuddist artifacts and Ancient Egypt. Quite a mix of interests. I expect the exhibitions would be of interest if these area of history are your bag but it was hard work trying to drum up enthusiasm for most of the displays. The Stuart and Jacobite stuff was the best, but lacked key background information.

Quite the best part of the whole visit was the personal life of Denys the philanderer. Married twice, had many girlfriends and spent time in Wormwood Scrubs for the attempted murder of one of his lady friends. He wasn't a wealthy man, a bank clerk it seems, so how did he come about the money to buy the Castle and to amass this collection.

Of more interest was the Streatfeild family who had the Castle built in the first place. The first born son of each generation was named Henry which made following the history of the Castle challenging.

Originally the buidling was called the High Street House until the wealthy Streatfields had the road diverted away from their front door to create the estate grounds. Another Streatfeild had the house extended to look like a castle.

You only found out this information having endured the other exhibitions. It might have been better to give an insight into the people earlier in the tour as it would have given the human story as a background.

After digesting all the historical and personal information we repaired to the tea room for more food before a brisk stroll of the grounds and out to the village. Chiddingstone village is a National Trust village, so why are cars allowed to park on both sides of the road right up against some fine buildings? There was plenty of space further up the road. The head teacher of the primary school was a one Rachel Streatfeild. Spelt the same way. Same family I wonder?

Finally, back home for Pimms, a barbeque and birthday cake. All in all, not a bad day.