Six wives of One King day 8

Day 8 Hever castle & Penshurst place Today we travelled out of London into the Kent the garden of England, to the town of Tonbridge and where the Australian Olympic team will be staying before the Games in London. Just a few miles away is Hever castle, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn. Hever had it’s most beautiful face on today as the sun shone and the gardens were in full bloom. JJ Astor renovated the castle and saved it for posterity and I think he did a pretty fine job of it. The Italian garden is superb just to walk around and there is plenty for everyone to do and see here. There are some real historical objects here like Anne Boleyn’s prayer book and some portraits too. Together with some tapestries the collection is worth seeing. Just outside the gate in the Church lies Anne Boleyn’s father though rather curiously the sig says the Grandfather of Queen Elizabeth I. From Hever we went to Penshurst Place the home of the Sidney family for over 450 years. Both these places were given to Anne of Cleves as part of the Divorce settlement so she did alright out of it. Penshurst has a huge walled garden with an apple orchard, a fish pond, a theatre stage, beautifully kept flower borders and an Elizabethan garden. All these lead up to a grand view of the west side of the house and in the sunshine it just glows a golden honey colour. Penshurst is where a great many of the period films are made as not only does the house look fantastic there are no other buildings in the background that look out of place from the period. We recreated the scene form Anne of a thousand days in the garden where Anne Boleyn comes up to Henry who is taking with Cardinal Wolsey and says (somethng like)“My Lord Cardinal I Think you have more Titles than my lord the King” it took us two takes and we still didn’t get it right. Taking our leave of Penshurst we spent the night in old Tudor coaching Inn in Tonbridge, but no leper pit.