Henry's sixth wife lived here - I got to look at the outside! (Sudeley Castle (Gloucestershire))

Member Name: azana

Product:	Sudeley Castle (Gloucestershire)
Date:	05/09/09 (56 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: historic, beautiful

Disadvantages: you can't see it all...

When I visited Sudely Castle recently I hadn't been there since I was about eight by my calculations. All I could remember was that there was a big adventure castle and some topiary arches; and all of 32 years later as we drew up to the car park it was pleasing to see that the playground, more of which later, was still there. The castle was ready for me to rediscover too - or was it?

My visit:

At the entrance I made use of my tesco clubcard deal vouchers, they also accept a 20 percent discount voucher from www.discountbritain.net, "but not both", I was informed in no uncertain terms. Entrance at the time of my visit was £7.20 for adults, £4.20 for children of 5 and older, and there was also a family ticket.

To be clear straight away, as you visit the historic castle, you are mainly visiting the grounds, gardens, and an exhibition. Unusually in these days the castle is privately owned by Lady Ashcombe and two of her children, no National Trust or big company here. This does mean that you can't visit inside, unless you are over 12 and happen to be visiting on a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, in which case the charge is £12 for a private tour. Visiting with two very-much under 12's as I was, no inside tour for me and it was off to visit the other delights of the castle grounds.

When you first arrive you can only really glimpse the historic building itself. Before getting to the gardens and the Chapel, where a former resident, one Catherine Parr is buried. As I am sure most people would know she was the wife of Henry VIII, his sixth to be precise - remember that rhyme "divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived" - well she is the one at the end of that list.

Before you can get to look at the castle you go through the intriguingly signposted "Pheasantry", which does indeed contain pheasants - 15 species of them from all over the world to be precise, and makes for quite an interesting start to your trip. You are told to keep quiet for the birds, which was a challenge for us, but seemed to be respected by most visitors.

And so we arrived at the gardens. These have won awards and have been much restored by the current owners and the topiary arches I remember seeming so magical when I was little were still there, and for my own children just as much fun to run under. The gardens are beautiful and well kept, but wouldn't be much fun to visit in the rain I fear. In their depths you can enter one solitary rather crumbling corridor which starts to tell you some of the history of the castle, from the playground of Royalty to that of Land Girls, with a stunning knot garden recalling the Tudor times.

The exhibition through a door in the gardens tells you about Catherine Parr and some more of the history of the castle. Accompanied by my delgihtful but low-attention-spanned children as I was, I wasn't able to peruse the whole thing at my leisure. I did however see one of Catherine's dresses and also one of her teeth and a lock of hair, which had been removed from her grave at some point in the distant past. I should think if you were a history buff with no children with you it would have made for a good hour of perusal, no such luck for me.

And there essentially the visit finishes - there is a tea room and you can see a trout pond on the site of what was once a maze, and the visit of the castle concludes, unless you are able to go on a guide you don't see much more of the castle than that.

To end our visit we went on to the adventure playground castle, which was just as big and filled with staircases, slides and places to run up and down as I remembered it being all those years ago. Back then we had run round it before piling back into the Cortina, today's children seemed to be enjoying it just as much, happily it had been restored and extended somewhat since my youth.

My thoughts:

Steeped in history and beautiful to look at Sudely is definitely worth a visit, and I am glad I went. If you are interested in gardens and history it is probably somewhere you will enjoy. Had I not had deals vouchers, courtesy of Tesco, I do think I would have found it a little pricey. I think also that the private ownership does have pros and cons. On the plus side it does feel less like visiting a corporate dominated historic place (think Warwick, now ruled by the Merlin group), but on the downside the access to the public is limited, you get a glimpse and not a whole visit. I would have liked to go on the tour as I should think it would be interesting, but this is on limited days, has to be booked, and under 12's are not allowed.

If you are in the area I should think you could enjoy a half day here in clement weather, then, like us you will probably move on to one of the other area's many attractions, flushed from a run around the wooden adventure castle, but wondering what lay inside the real thing.

http://www.sudeleycastle.co.uk/ for pictures of the castle and gardens and more info

Summary: our trip to sudely - 32 years on.