Bodiam Castle
Bodiam Castle in the East Sussex Weald is one of the most complete and most romantic medieval castle ruins in England, a late fourteenth-century moated fortress whose four corner towers, battlemented walls and wide surrounding moat create a composition so perfectly preserved and so visually satisfying that it has become one of the defining images of the English castle in the popular imagination. The castle was built between 1385 and 1388 by Sir Edward Dalyngrigge, a veteran of the Hundred Years War who obtained a licence to crenellate from Richard II on the grounds that the castle would defend against French invasion up the River Rother, though historians have debated whether this was the true purpose or a useful justification for building a status symbol of great personal ambition.
The castle is widely considered to be designed as much for display and aristocratic prestige as for genuine military effectiveness, its regular plan, large windows and symmetrical towers reflecting the aesthetic preferences of a successful knight who wished to project an image of authority and culture as much as military power. Dalyngrigge had fought in France and would have been familiar with the French castle architecture of the period, and the design of Bodiam shows an awareness of Continental military fashions filtered through the requirements of an English country gentleman who wanted a beautiful house as well as a defensible one.
The moat, wide and still and perfectly reflecting the castle walls and towers on calm days, is one of Bodiam's most celebrated features and gives the site its characteristic photograph. The National Trust, which has managed the castle since 1925, maintains the moat and the castle fabric and provides interpretive displays in the interior that explain the castle's history and architecture. The interior is largely roofless and ruined but the wall walks and towers can be climbed, providing good views over the Rother valley and the castle's setting in the Weald.
The surrounding countryside of the High Weald, with its ancient oak woodland, hop gardens and weather-boarded farmhouses, provides good walking and a beautiful landscape context for the castle visit.