English Heritage has announced that Walmer Castle opened the private Lord Warden’s apartment today.

The private apartment of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports is opened to the public for the for the first time.   Queen Elizabath the Queen Mother was the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports from 1978 to 2002. 

It was a favourite seaside retreat of the beloved Queen Mother, who loved her annual summer trips there.   Flowers from the beautiful gardens were there in a vase to welcome her. 

The furnishings are evocative of an age past, and visitors can tour a selection of rooms in the apartment such as the sitting room, the dining room and the master bedroom.  The rooms were used by The Queen Mother and others and up to now, they’ve been locked away behind a secret door.

Private items that haven’t been seen for decades are redisplayed, together with art work and  a selection of paintings from a collection belonging to Sir Robert Menzies. 

The castle was built on the orders of King Henry VIII to defend English shores 
Find out all about it here

The apartment was separated into a private space in the 1960s to enable the emain part of the castle to stay open to the public, whilst the Lord Warden was residing there. 

The previous Lord Wardens include some very influential people in English history such as William Pitt the Younger, the Duke of Wellington (who died at the castle in 1852) and Winston Churchill. You can see an original pair of Wellington boots!  

The Lord Warden’s Apartment will stay open throughout 2024, say English Heritage.

There's lots more to see at Walmer Castle, including the Broadwalk Garden with its replanted herbaceous borders , The Queen Mother's Garden, who was gifted with it on her 95th birthday,  the Kitchen Garden (be inspired to grow your own, if you don't already), a Natural Play Garden for children, the Wellington Room where Wellington passed away, a second hand book shop and - of course - a cafe so that you can rest and dwell on what you've seen whilst enjoying a cup of something. 

Join English Heritage today! 

English Heritage care for over 400 properties in England, and last year, they welcomed more families to their historic venues than ever before.

Over 550,000 families visited English Heritage sites in 2032 – this is the highest figure since records began.  What’s more, the number was up by 54% over the last 10 years. 

Stonehenge in Wiltshire saw its best year ever in 2023 for families coming to visit. 
It saw family visits go up by 23% year on year. 

Nine historic castles, palaces and abbeys saw their highest ever number of visitors in 2023, and 10 more had their best years in over a decade.

English Heritage is thrilled to see so many families enjoying the sites where history happened. 

Tintagel Castle in Cornwall had its best ever figures for the third year in a row.  Their numbers were up by nearly 20% in 2023, compared to the year before.

Helmsley Castle is in North Yorkshire - visit it to find out how it evolved over 900 years.

Other castles also had a great year:  Helmsley in North Yorkshire, Deal in Kent, Portland in Dorset and Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight all had their best ever years.  Leicestershire’s Kirby Muxloe, Pevensey (Sussex) and Stokesay (Shropshire) all had their best years in over 10 years.

Nine of the properties with their highest ever visitor numbers were connected to Henry VIII.   The castles build in Deal, Portland and Yarmound were all build by Henry VIII as coastal fortresses.   His childhood home was Eltham Palace in London, where visitor numbers were up 9%. 

Gainsborough Hall is one of the biggest and best-preserved medieval manor houses in England.
It's in Lincolnshire, and it hosted Henry VIII several times.
Catherine Parr lived there as a girl. 

Roman sites saw numbers go up as well, such as the Richborough Roman Fort  and Amphitheatre in Kent, which welcomed 145% more visitors than it had before it closed for a two year conservation project.   And visitors flocked to Aldborough Roman Site and Wroxeter Roman City in Shropshire had their best visitor figures since 1999 and 2011 respectfully

And monastic sites did well, too, such as Furness Abbey (Cumbria), Lindisfarne Prior (Northumberland) and St Augustine’s Abbey in Kent had their highest visitor numbers in over 20 years.   Battle Abbey (Sussex), Tynemouth Priory (Tyne and Wear) and Hailes Abbey (Gloucestershire) had strong years, too.

SPECIAL OFFER ON NEW GIFT AND ANNUAL MEMBERSHIPS

You can see there’s lots to see and experience, and enjoy and discover – and English Heritage have 15% off new gift and annual memberships until the 31 December 2024.  So don’t wait any longer – give a gift membership or take one out yourself!  Use the code  EHAFF2024  to get your 15% off**.  

**This code EHAFF2024 is valid until 31st December 2024 and for use on new  membership purchases only.  Annual Direct Debit only. 

The British Newspaper Archive keeps expanding week by week! 

It's a partnership with the British Library and the aim was to digitise up to 40 million pages from the British Library's collection over a 10 year period.  Well, it's gone way past that - it now has 98,781,536 pages to explore (as at 5 January 2026).

The collection is just staggering.  And the joy of it is that you don't need to leave the house to view it all - you can do it from home, perfect as we approach that time of year when the nights are drawing in and it starts to get colder.

I love the fact that you can delve into all aspects of life and society to see what people were concerned about at the time;  you can search up births, marriages and deaths, and find out what life was like for your ancestors!  What would they have been talking about at the dinner table?  What would they have been concerned about? What was being advertised, what was popular? What social events were taking place that they might have gone to?  How did they fill any spare time they had? All fascinating stuff, giving you a great insight into life in the past.

Newspapers give us clues and hints as to what people thought was important and really can add to our knowledge of the fabric of life and the glue that held it together.

This is a great gift for anyone who loves immersing themselves into history, even without leaving the house.  I've got a subscription and it's amazing how easy it is to get so involved in what you're looking at that you go from one thing to another on it without realising how the time is going!

Give a gift subscription to the British Newspaper Archive today!