A Tour of English Castles

Here in northern Minnesota, the summer of 1980 was especially nasty. More black flies than usual, rain every day or at least every other day. The sun would shine from time to time, but it was always gray and hazy. The TV news programs said it was because of the volcanic ash spewed across the continent after the eruption of Mount Saint Helens.

We decided early in August to leave town! Wow, where would we go? My husband sat down with me on the porch swing one afternoon and suggested that before our passports expire, we should revisit England, as we had promised ourselves, on our honeymoon seventeen years before.

Ten minutes later, Jim called our travel agent with instructions to book two tickets to Heathrow, a rental car, two-night hotel stays in Kent, Essex, Sussex, and the Isle of Wight. That was a Monday. The following Monday we were on our way to the UK for a ten day “castle hop” across the south of England. It was a trip we had planned years ago, but never took because “life” sometimes gets in the way of having fun.

The inspiration for the trip was a set of Tuck Postcards that I found in an antique shop over a decade before I met Jim. The set is called “Picturesque Castles.” There are six in the set. Five of the six cards are signed by someone named A. Aveling. I later learned that Aveling is a fairly common name in England (and France), but I never had success in finding who A. Aveling was.

The art is charming and colorful. I suspect the original images were watercolor paintings of Upnor Castle, Leeds Castle, and Rochester Castle, each in Kent; Hadleigh Castle in Essex; Hurstmonceaux Castle in Sussex; and Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight.

I would later learn that although the art is beautiful, it is not altogether exact. I’m not sure why, it may be as simple as, the artist made the postcard pictures sometime prior to 1908 and we were looking at the same sight at least 72 years later.

When I found these cards in my collection while looking for something else, memories flooded back to mind. That summer trip was, after all, more than forty years ago. Upnor Castle in Kent (the most southeastern county in England) was our first stop. My most precious memory of that day was the quiet we found in the tiny riverside village of Upnor. We had arrived at 6:45 that morning on an overnight flight, the exaggerated hustle of arriving in a foreign country left us a bit weary. After retrieving luggage from the baggage carrousel, passing the passport check and customs, completing car rental paperwork and making our way out of London on one of their M-roads, tranquility was most welcome.

I’m sorry to report that I remember very little of the history of the castles we visited, but certainly anyone with a quarter-ounce of curiosity can learn the historical details on the Internet.

So, if you forgive me for the sketchy history, I would like to tell you of my recollections of these delightfully old places without a lot of detail. I may include a few things Jim remembers, too!