August 2003
To start off the summer holidays, we booked a Hilton Family Break near Maidstone in Kent. Despite spending a great deal of time in the hotel pool, we managed to visit a number of places in Kent and East Sussex.
Standen – an odyssey for the Pre-Raphaelite fan in the family, a family home built in the 1890s and a showcase of William Morris carpets, fabrics and wallpapers
Ightham Mote – a moated manor house dating from 1330 nestled in a sunken valley near Sevenoaks
Knole – built by an archbishop in the Middle Ages, later a royal palace, still later the childhood home of Vita Sackville-West
Quebec House – an absolute must for any self-respecting Canadian with an interest in Canadian history
Sissinghurst Castle Garden – spectacular gardens created by Vita Sackville-West and husband Sir Harold Nicolson in the 1930s
Bodiam Castle – a ruin by and large, with the exterior virtually complete and enough of the interior surviving to allow for an imaginative afternoon