Charles Binns - Landscape Photography, Nature Photography, Travel Photography

Leeds Castle

All images (c) Charles Binns - Landscape Photography, Nature Photography, Travel Photography.

Leeds Castle, four miles south east of Maidstone, Kent, England, dates back to 1119, though a manor house stood on the same site from the 9th century.

Built in 1119 by Robert de Crevecoeur to replace the earlier Saxon manor of Esledes, the castle became a royal palace for King Edward I of England and his queen, Eleanor of Castile in 1278. Major improvements were made during his time, including the Barbican, made up of three parts, each with its own entrance, drawbridge, gateway, and portcullis. The medieval keep is called the "Gloriette" in honour of Queen Eleanor.

In 1321 King Edward II besieged the castle after his queen was refused admission, and used ballistas, or springalds, to force its defenders to surrender. In 1395, King Richard II received the French chronicler Jean Froissart there, as Froissart described in his Chronicles.

Henry VIII transformed the castle for his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and a painting commemorating his meeting with Francis I of France still hangs there. His daughter, Queen Elizabeth I was imprisoned in the castle for a time before her coronation.

The castle escaped destruction during the English Civil War because its owners, the Culpeper family, sided with the Parliamentarians. The last private owner of the castle was Lady Baillie, the heiress to an American fortune from her mother’s family and the daughter of an English Lord, who bought it in 1926. She redecorated the interior, working with the Paris decorator Stéphane Boudin. Baillie established the Leeds Castle Foundation.

Lady Baillie filled the castle with art and antiques, collected on her frequent buying trips around Europe, and with glamorous house parties at which she entertained princes, film stars and politicians. Her guests enjoyed the use of the castle’s cinema, swimming pool, squash and tennis courts, and marveled at the extraordinary creatures in the grounds. Lady Baillie’s fascinating collection of birds and waterfowl is still to be seen in the Castle's aviary.

The castle was opened to the public in 1976.

On July 17, 1978, the castle was the site of a meeting between the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan in preparation for the Camp David Accords.

Leeds is the home of black swans. They were a gift given to Winston Churchill after WWII and their descendants are still there.

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