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Original Text (Annotation: EAW042667 / 779479)
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Chilham Castle
Grade 1 listed building English Heritage Building ID: 181415
Post code CT4 8DB
House. 1616 for Sir Dudley Digges, addtions and alterations by
David Brandon 1861 - 3, and Sir Herbert Baker, 1922. Red brick
and ashlar dressings and plain tile roof. Built as an hexagon
open to the south, with C19 and C20 service wing extending to the west.
Prior to the 1616 house there was a castle on the site but it was used as a "quarry" by Sir Thomas Cheney who has purchased it in 1542.
The remains having been sold, a daughter of a new owner moved onto the site with her husbamd Sir Douglas Digges who built the present house - the remains of the old keep (c 1174) was used in turn as an outhouse, brewery and water-tower.
The present terracing, altered in the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, leads down to a fishing lake dating from the time of Charles Stewart Hardy in the 1860s and 70s. The walls to the grounds date mostly from the eighteenth century, although the two gatehouses were only added in the early 1920s, again replacing a very different 19th century one.
The garden is open for a few days each year but the castle is private property. The house that was built in 1616 on the site of the ancient castle, and bears its name, has since 2002 been the home of Stuart and Tessa Wheeler.
information resources:
http://www.chilham-castle.co.uk/
and wikipedia
Image- Not to be reproduced without permission; Reproduced by permission of English Heritage
from http://www.englishheritagearchives.org.uk/SingleResult/Default.aspx?
id=1821068&t=Quick&cr=chilham&io=True&l=all
View from the East - 1860 - 1895
original source Photograph album by Flaxman Spurrell '