Kent

We'd visited Dover Castle earlier in the week. This is one of English Heritage's big - and expensive - attractions, definitely best from a financial point of view to visit when you're a member of English Heritage, which we rejoined last year after a long gap. The Castle has a fascinating and long history, with the Keep initially built by Henry II in the 1180s, and the Castle last seeing active service in World War II, when the Dunkirk evacuation was planned from a command base in a network of tunnels under the Castle, while a small hospital was established in another level of tunnels. We visited both of these, but the deeper “Dumpy Level” (also a WW2 operations centre and designated as a regional centre of government in the event of nuclear war, only decommissioned in the 1980s) is not usually open to the public.

Dover Castle is high on a hill above the town, with good views of part of the harbour, and later in the week (actually after visiting Deal Castle and Walmer Castle, described below) we stopped off at the nearby National Trust's White Cliffs of Dover car park and visitor centre. It was heaving with people, mostly visitors from outside the UK, and the café here didn’t appeal, so we set off on the 2-mile walk, above the famous white cliffs, to South Foreland Lighthouse. Initially the path was busy, but it quietened down as the distance from the car park increased, and the weather deteriorated. We watched the ferries coming and going from the Port of Dover beneath us and we also had occasional views of the chalk cliffs, though not nearly as good as the cliff views from out at sea! 

It started to rain just as we reached the lighthouse, so we dived into the café here, which was much nicer than that at the White Cliffs Visitor Centre. The first part of our return walk was distinctly damp, but most of the people had gone, and by the time we got back to the car, the sun had come out. This had been a walk that I felt we should do – and I was pleased we had -  but if you want a walk along the top of spectacular chalk cliffs, I would instead recommend the walk above the Seven Sisters to the west of Eastbourne, at the end of the South Downs Way.

So that just leaves me with the 1.3-mile walk from Walmer Castle and Gardens to Deal Castle (and return) to describe. Walmer is only about 7 miles from Dover, but the landscape is very different. Instead of the chalk cliffs, here we were walking along the seafront by a shingly beach. As recommended, we’d  parked at Walmer Castle and Gardens and started by walking from there to Deal Castle. 

Deal and Walmer castles were built in 1539-40 by Henry VIII, who was worried about the threat of invasion from Europe following Henry’s break with the Catholic church. The two castles (and Sandown Castle to the north of Deal, which is no longer there) were built to a similar design, based on a series of interconnected circles. We enjoyed Deal Castle more than expected, but (unusually) it doesn’t have a café, so after looking at the boats pulled up onto the beach near the Pier, we stopped for a drink at a café on the way back to Walmer, opposite where a fun fair was being set up.

We had our lunch sitting in the car, then went to look at Walmer Castle and Gardens. While the basic castle design is the same as Deal’s, and again there are replica guns pointing out to sea, Walmer Castle was converted into an attractive house many years ago to form the official residence for the Warden of the Cinque Ports. The gardens are lovely, and we almost missed the best bit, the private apartment where the wardens lived after the Castle started to be opened to the public.  Stories of visits to the apartment by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and another Warden who lived here with his family were particularly interesting.