South East - Kent

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WALMER CASTLE & GARDENS

Kingsdown Road,
Deal, Kent
CT14 7LJ
t: 01304 364288
e: walmercastlegroupbookings@english-heritage.org.uk
w: www.english-heritage.org.uk/walmercastle

Walmer Castle is a destination for all seasons. In summer groups can take advantage of the weather to explore eight-acres of gardens including the kitchen garden where fruit and vegetables have ripened for over 300 years. On colder days there’s plenty to absorb groups inside. Built by Henry VIII it became the official residence of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and has evolved into an elegant country house. The restored interiors give groups deep insight into the castle’s many famous residents and guests, including William Pitt the Younger, the ‘Iron Duke’ of Wellington and Winston Churchill.


  • Experience how Wellington’s spirit lives on where he was resident Lord Warden for 23 years. Many of his possessions, including his spartan camp bed and the armchair in which he died, are in an exhibition designed to mark the bicentenary of his greatest triumph: victory at Waterloo in 1815.
  • Discover how Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, used Walmer as a weekend retreat during the early part of the First World War. Here, he planned the disastrous Dardanelles and Gallipoli campaign, whose bloody failure cost him his job.
  • Hear how the poet Rupert Brooke wrote his famous work The Soldier (‘If I should die, think only this of me...’) at Walmer, before dying of disease during the Dardanelles operation.
  • Take an intimate look at the rooms used by a popular recent Lord Warden, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, to entertain her many visitors and relax in the garden created for her 95th birthday.
  • Wander through Walmer’s varied grounds, including a wildlife-rich woodland, the Cloud Hedge, a working kitchen garden and the ‘Broadwalk’ herbaceous border, restored and planted in a colour scheme inspired by garden designer Gertrude Jekyll.

 

ITINERARY IDEA

Combine a trip to Walmer with a visit to nearby Deal Castle, another of Henry VIII’s forts, now with a brand new exhibition. A visit to both helps to highlight the castle’s transition from fortress to home.