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Grade II* Listed Chiddingstone Castle was an early timber-framed Tudor house inhabited by the Streatfeild family. It was partly transformed in the late 17th or early 18th century as a Carolean mansion and again during the early 1800s when the then owner, Squire Henry Streatfeild, decided to rebuild the house to resemble a medieval castle and commissioned William Atkinson to design the changes (designs exhibited Royal Academy 1838). Atkinson’s plans were never completed and the castle’s transformation was partially finished according to Henry Kendall’s design during the 1830s. The Streatfeilds did not occupy the castle after 1900 and finally sold it to Lord Astor in 1938. In this period the Castle suffered quite severely from a general lack of maintenance and sheer neglect. Moreover, it was occupied by the Army during World War II. After the war the building continued to deteriorate as home for the Long Dene school until 1954 when the school was closed. Denys Eyre Bower bought the castle in 1955 and gave it a new lease of life opening it up to visitors to view his collections. The castle was reopened in 2008 by the Denys Eyre Bower Bequest Charity Trust after a period of restoration and now has over 10,000 visitors a year. The Miniature 35-acre 19th century park containing Georgian gothic buildings was devastated in the 1987 gales.

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