Hever Castle

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Hever Castle
The castle and adjacent farmhouses

Hever Castle is a castle located near the village of Hever near Edenbridge , Kent , United Kingdom.

history

Hever Castle was the country estate of the Boleyn family. Built as a country house in the 13th century, it was converted into a mansion in 1462 by Geoffrey Boleyn , Lord Mayor of London . The remains of the half-timbered apartment can be seen between the stone walls of the fortification. Some time after 1505, the Boleyn family moved into Hever Castle. Anne Boleyn and her siblings Mary Boleyn and George Boleyn spent part of their childhood here before Anne was sent to the Netherlands and the French royal court for upbringing between 1513 and 1521. Three years after Anne Boleyn's marriage to King Henry VIII , Anne and her brother George were executed for high treason in 1536. Her father Thomas Boleyn died in 1539. Hever Castle then came into the possession of Henry VIII, who transferred it to Anna of Cleves after his divorce in 1540 , who presumably only spent a short time there.

In the following period, the building changed hands several times, including the Waldegrave family in 1557 and the Meade-Waldo family from 1749 to 1903. In the last period, the building, which was used by various private tenants, deteriorated more and more. In 1903 the British-American millionaire William Waldorf Astor acquired the property along with 51 hectares of land. After his son Waldorf Astor's marriage to Nancy Witcher Langhorne in 1906, he left the couple's previous residence in Cliveden and moved to Hever Castle, which he had completely restored or rebuilt in pseudo-medieval style at great expense. A village outside the moat was rebuilt and expanded in the pseudo-Tudor style. At his wedding in 1916 with Lady Violet Mary Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound Astor's youngest son, John Jacob Astor V (1886-1971), who was knighted as Baron Astor of Hever in 1956, Hever Castle. The property is now a conference center, but the castle is open to the public. The impressive gatehouse is the only remaining medieval part of Hever Castle.

garden

Statue in the Italian gardens of Hever Castle

Astor had the architect Frank Pearson create a 1.6 hectare walled garden according to Italian taste, for which he imported numerous sculptures and planters from the Villa Borghese . A Palladian- style pavilion , a loggia overlooking a large artificial lake with a 7-hectare island and a replica of the Trevi Fountain complete the ensemble. The wall on the loggia was designed in the Pompeian style, it contains niches and rotundas for statues and other archaeological finds looted in Rome. The square yew - maze was created in the year 1904th In 2013, the yew trees were cut back radically to restore their original shape. Nearby there is a group of the form of bushes , as chess pieces were cut and Anne Boleyn Front Garden, which is decorated with garden plants in their lifetime. Anne's tree garden with espalier fruit houses beehives. A small water maze was opened in 1987. The extensive, diverse garden includes a rose garden , a blue garden and the Diana Walk with perennial plantations in the prairie style .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Janet Waymark 2003. Modern garden design. Innovation since 1900. London, Thames and Hudson, 11
  2. ^ Stephanie Mahon, Autumn with the Astors. The English Garden November 2013, 35
  3. ↑ Janet Waymark 2003. Modern garden design. Innovation since 1900. London, Thames and Hudson, 12

Web links

Commons : Hever Castle  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 11 ′ 13 ″  N , 0 ° 6 ′ 50 ″  E