
Chartwell
Westerham, Kent
The house was largely rebuilt c1850 and in 1922 Winston Churchill commissioned Philip Tilden to significantly alter the house. Churchill developed the terraced gardens from the late 1920s….

Chilham Castle
Chilham, Kent
The original house was built 1603-1616 with alterations made in the mid eighteenth century and again in 1922 by Sir Herbert Baker. The octagonal keep and curtain walls of the twelfth century Castle lie to the west of the house.

Emmetts Garden
Sevenoaks, Kent
The house was built in 1860 with the gardens laid out at the same time. In 1890, the estate was bought by Frederic Lubbock who planted a collection of rare shrubs and specimen trees.

Godinton House
Ashford, Kent
The large red-brick house was built in 1628 by Nicholas Toke with the original medieval house at its core. Further additions were made by John Toke in the eighteenth century and again by Reginald Blomfield in 1896 for George Ashley Dodd.

Hever Castle & Gardens
Edenbridge, Kent
In the thirteenth century, Hever was owned by the de Hever family who sold it in 1462 to Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, great-grandfather of Anne Boleyn. William Waldorf Astor bought the estate in 1903, restored the moated Castle and laid out the gardens….

Knole
Sevenoaks, Kent
Thomas Sackville carried out major work on the house from 1605 to 1608, remodelling the earlier fifteenth century building. Charles Sackville-West gave the house to National Trust in 1947 with the majority of the rooms leased back to the Sackville family.

Leeds Castle
Maidstone, Kent
The main castle was begun in 1119, enlarged by Henry VIII and rebuilt in the early seventeenth century by the Smythe family. The present house was designed by William Baskett in 1822 for Fiennes Wykeham Martin.

Penshurst Place
Tonbridge, Kent
Sir John de Pulteney built Penshurst in 1341 and it was subsequently owned by the Duke of Buckingham. On his execution for treason in 1551, the estate reverted to the Crown and after passing to Sir Ralph Fane who was also executed for treason, Edward VI gave Penshurst to Sir William Sidney. It has remained in the Sidney family ever since.

Scotney Castle
Tunbridge Wells, Kent
The present Tudor-style house was designed by Anthony Salvin between 1834-35 with the fourteenth century moated castle and attached seventeenth century house, largely demolished. This ‘ruin’ became an essential part of the Picturesque landscape.

Sissinghurst
Cranbrook, Kent
The Tower, Priest’s House and South Cottage are all that remain of the original Elizabethan house that was probably build Richard Baker c1560-70. In 1930, Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West bought Sissinghurst and began restoring the buildings and garden….