Hi – Ho! Hever Castle (with Wolf Hall in tow)

Saturday was a sharp clear coldish day and what better circumstances for going around the wonderful Hever Castle with my half read copy of Wolf Hall under my arm? For those of you who are not regular Hever-beavors – Hever Castle is a 14th century moated castle in Kent, in the south of England and it was the childhood home of Anne Boleyn, the second queen of Henry VIII who, as we all know, met a sticky end in the tower of London. I went there for the first time when I was a little girl and as a grown up I have visited in all moods and weathers. The thing which struck me on my last visit also struck me on my first, when I myself was quite small: it is tiny. It feels like a toy castle. That is not to say that there is no menace in its dingy doorways and narrow passages. Actually, the whole place reminds me slightly of this eerie line from Wolf Hall: “Every journey ends; terminates, at some pier, some mist-shrouded wharf, where torches are waiting”.

Here is a bit of a taster