Stories Project

In 2024, we launched the Chiddingstone Castle Stories Project, the first stage of which aimed to capture memories about Denys Eyre Bower and the history of Chiddingstone Castle. We wanted to learn more about who Denys was as a person, his collections and displays, and how the castle was run. Through recorded interviews, we collected stories that can be shared with the local community and visitors to the castle, preserving them for the future.

Heather & David McGill - Clip 1, 14.03.2024

Well, I’d check everything, actually, maintenance wise, because every year I would put in a report and say what needs to be done. And invariably in the beginning that was pretty good as there wasn’t that much traffic, so it was all done. But besides that, I cut the grass - all the grass around the ha-ha, I had to do that. It had to be nice and flat like a bowling green. Another thing I did was the driveway from the bottom gate up, to make sure that the sides of the road were clear. So, there was quite a lot of physical work, which I enjoyed anyway.

Heather & David McGill - Clip 2, 14.03.2024

Yes, that was quite interesting, and we saw a lot of people, we saw a lot of different outfits. One on Halloween and the bride was dressed in black which was very different. We had another one who had a Christian ceremony, and they had a civil ceremony, then they were outside jumping the broomstick around the tree, so that was different. But it was quite interesting, we met a lot of people, they had different kinds of weddings.

Heather & David McGill - Clip 3, 14.03.2024

But it’s been nice here, we’ve had various visitors here. One of our grandsons, I showed him the picture of the castle - ‘You lived in a castle?’. ‘Yes’. We were gone by the time they could have come to visit us. A couple of them did come – our granddaughter actually. You know how kids are asked to give an account, a story at school ‘show and tell’, or whatever they call it. And our granddaughter in America…, she told the teacher about her grandparents that live in a castle and told all the story. And the teacher says to our daughter ‘your daughter has got a very good imagination telling us her grandparents live in a castle’. And she said, ‘well they do’, [laughs]. So that was fun.

Return to the main stories project page

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