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.

Robert Everest - Clip 1, 13.03.2024

The gate was always shut and nobody ever walked through the castle grounds. You used to see him driving through the village in a very elderly Rolls Royce, wearing a monocle, which even in the early 60’s a monocle was really something you only ever saw in ‘Jeeves and Wooster’ and things like that [laughs], it wasn’t a common sight, particularly for a country child. So, I can remember him as being quite a striking figure then.

Robert Everest - Clip 2, 13.03.2024

The Japanese armour was in front of what is now the main visitor entrance and that was a long corridor that you went along between one room at the front and the other. And the armour was all there facing you, and it was really dismally lit. I remember being quite spooked by it, the first time I walked past it, and thinking is all seems to be standing there in the dark and waiting to leap out on the unexpected and I could see why visitors found it somewhat creepy.

Robert Everest - Clip 3, 13.03.2024

I don’t remember any interview, I don’t ... all our conversations were at that stage would have been about what he wanted doing, if it was a wet day, whether he wanted the gate open. Well, it was practical things about doing the task, I don’t think I ever volunteered any information about me, and I don’t think he ever volunteered any information about him. But he was very very polite, very formal, very very nice.

Robert Everest - Clip 4, 13.03.2024

I thought if you’d asked me, I would have said probably, that he dressed rather out of his time. In the same way that he wore a monocle, he would be wearing quite an old-fashioned three-piece suit. Even though three-piece suits were still being worn, by myself for a number of years, working. But of a style that was perhaps more, more of his younger days, I suppose, between the wars, rather than what was slightly more casual, looser fitting of the 1960’s.

Robert Everest - Clip 5, 13.03.2024

I’d enjoyed doing it, I’d enjoyed making some money and having a regular job. I liked the fact that, like most teenagers, I saved all my homework for a Sunday afternoon, as all teenagers did, but I had the perfect excuse because I had a long time, particularly when you’re doing things like maths A-level, to sit down and work your way through pages and pages of formulae. You had the time to sit there, and then you just broke off. I used to bring a little transistor radio with me and listen to, those days, they used to put Top of the Pops out and you’d listen to what the Hit Parade was in the afternoon. So that was my Sunday afternoon, and on sunny days I can’t think of any nicer way of spending it.

Return to the main stories project page

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