Hever Castle: In Search of the Boleyn Family Home

hi it's Sara the tutor travel guide here and today we're in the Magnificent Hever Castle in Kent and I'm here to meet Owen Emerson of hever castle who's going to take us on a very special guided tour so why don't we go straight on over and meet with Owen right now and let's just dive in thank you so much for inviting us here to see such a glorious day wonderful it's so lovely to welcome you oh that's wonderful and of course this place is such a mecca for so many Amblin family and just wants or twice in my time as well but you're here to kind of take us into all the nooks and crannies and tell us some of the stories and hopefully bring this place to life so before we we're gonna go on a tour of the castle but before we do that maybe you could just give us a little potted history of you know when was the first Castle here what do we know about that and and take us through the timeline towards the end of the Tudors absolutely right so we believe that Hever is built around 1271 that's when it's believed - a bit built there is a license to Crenna late that is too embattled the manor here at Hever in 1271 and we believe that was granted to a man called Steven the pen tester who was heavily involved in nearby penshurst place and it was granted to a man called William Deever who's believed to have been the Builder there is some sort of mystery about the origins at Hever we're hoping to sort of clear that out in the in the near future and then the castle goes to a family of a Kentish family called Cobham family who are very influential to multiple owners and for very short periods of time really until and of course Geoffrey Berlin who's Anne's grandfather great great grandfather my apologies purchases Heath and he was the Lord Mayor of London I certainly wasn't eyes he's very similar to another family the Astor family who bill purchased heaver and sort of much later and he restored the castle saved it absolutely and in the fact that he is a man of means and he's done so by work I mean he starts as an apprentice making shoes so he's very much a man that has worked his way up and has built a family fortune and what a fortune it was to have built you know to have purchased hever castle and it then gets passed to William and grandfather and then to Thomas Boleyn her father and and and we believe would have arrived here at Hever in about 1505 probably at around the array age of five and this is her childhood home and this is sort of safe haven [Music] good so we then move into the Tudor period and and who owns the house then so evil was purchased by Geoffrey Berlin who is an Billings great-grandfather he was a man of relatively low means at the beginning of his life and managed to work his way up through guilds and to the position of Lord Mayor of London and is able to buy this fabulous property for his family seat and his son William then inherits and thereafter Thomas Boleyn who is of course an Berlin's father and ambling we believed would have arrived here in around 1505 and this is where she spent her childhood this where she spent her formative years and we'll talk a bit more about where she yeah that's wonderful okay so I mean after the fall of the Berlin I know that enough piece of course came to live here how did that happen so after the fall of the Berlin and the death of Sir Thomas Boleyn the property then passes very briefly to James Berlin and he then sells it really swaps it with some properties in Norfolk's the family home really with the Crown Estate so it becomes part of Henry's Crown Estate and then after his annulment of the marriage with Cleves the properties then passed to her she's really allowed to sort of rent it and Henry pays her rent and he's that that agreement is put in place for her lifetime I fan and we know that Anne spends a lot of her time here right because that's something I haven't really researched a lot of and it was one of my burning questions for you today so how much time did spend here where it's really her country seat so we know that perhaps just after the annulment she doesn't spend a huge amount of time here but increasingly as her fortunes deteriorate certainly when she transfers from being the Queen's sister the King's sister to being the Kings aren't with Edward he strips away a couple of palaces from her bletchingley and Richmond and we know that an increasingly spends her time here that's really interesting so I know this I've seen at least one letter from her here other than are there more they certainly are and a lot of them are to to Cleves they're actually located in the Cleves arc she's writing home to her family after leaving you so this is the gatehouse isn't it which is this the oldest part of the oldest part of the castle yeah it certainly is we're just walking from the medieval part of the castle into Jeffrey Billings house that he sort of slotted in between the curtain walls and has been renovated by the Astor's but this is the the balloons family home that he inserted into the castle and is this how it would have looked in Ann's time are there any features that are different to how she would have known it yes ass's restored a lot of the wood and the patterning we know would have been different and also the levels are slightly different for example there are three levels over here when they're originally they would have only been two with the third level of the back the long gallery which we will see later I see so so really it was a little bit more squat maybe in the 16th century so and am i right in thinking that in the medieval period there would be just maybe a simple hole beyond there absolutely we even think there could have been what is called a loggia and open space with a gallery above it and so early long galleries had an open space below them and then a simple gallery above which is what we have with the staircase gallery and so there's every possibility this was an open space that we're going into now and and then we'll go what more into what was the Tudor Hitchin okay well maybe we should go and do that right now yeah now Owen this is such a beautiful room now it's all beautifully paneled and there's all this glorious wooden carving fabulous paintings but in the sixteenth century this is not how this room would have been at all is it not at all we're actually in this rather deceptive space at the moment because this was actually the Tudor kitchens this is a very much a domestic part of the castle and it certainly wouldn't been inhabited by the balloons than the South was although I'm sure children used to sneak sneak in as children do so in in in essence really my understanding is the Great Hall is beyond us in that direction there would have been passage through here into the kitchens and you can actually see the passageway still here some hidden doors here and yet so that would have been a passage through into the Great Hall yeah yeah and so we would have had huge great big fireplaces over here and yeah this would have been a very very different space indeed so this have been the size of the kitchen or has it been right must be because of those thick walls I can't imagine me absolutely I mean this is this is a small family home so and yeah this is precisely the this size of the kitchen it's actually slightly larger than it would have been okay and yeah it's a perhaps a shame that we don't have the original kitchen still but we do have this fantastic reception room I must admit the Astor's did do a good job even though the interiors you know aren't authentic they did a wonderful wonderful job so did [Music] we've come into this beautiful room and whenever I walk into this room I kind of just takes my breath away because it's so beautiful so feminine they've got this gorgeous inlaid paneling this amazing molded ceiling but when I was doing my research for little viondra and also for in the footsteps of amberle in my understanding was that the family didn't really use this side of the castle so so what do we know about what was here sure well and you're completely right we're actually start standing in what was the larder for the villains behind us again would have been another ladder and beyond that the Derry this is the we're in the walls of the castle it's a very cool place and so we do have a very crude and drawing of what was here and yeah so this is again is a very domestic space it's just off of the kitchen and it's a place that the balloons wouldn't really have inhabited yeah what an amazing transformation as was affected in here yeah he's just transformed this from a place of labour into a place of leisure because he has no need for that early space yeah [Music] and that originally would have been the Chateau loans office I say and so you were moving into a very privileged part of the castle we're now very valued yes because we are entering the private sanctum of the Berlin's and that was the Chateau lanes office in that direction so that was really the territory of Elizabeth Berlin so if her husband was away at court or diplomatic mission that's where she would run the castle from absolutely that's where the finance of the castle this state was running from and we've now moved into a private space we talked about the creation of a private space and this is the blings parlor right and so just to orientate everyone if I put my hand on this wall here that's why I'm the far side is the Great Hall where I just come from and we're supposing that there would have been a doorway that led through from the Great Hall into this private space this is a place people would come to to retire wouldn't it and have some privacy absolutely this is a real definition of the Tudor period and also the status of the Berlin family this is Thomas saying that I can afford private space something that wasn't expected in the medieval period of a man of his status this is really saying he's risen up in the world and it's also telling his visitors that he can afford for his women not to work this is where they would have done clean work such as black work and so he's really letting people know that he's he's been the embroidery that beautiful embroidery on cuffs and sleeves that we would have seen that's why it's considered a leisure pursuit is not a pursuit of labor for a woman of Elizabeth status and I love coming in here and thinking of the you know the crackling fire in Windsor and they've been out riding in the park and they come in here and they're pulling off their gloves and they're talking and again goodness knows what only conversations happened in this room Oh many very near anybody so with that actually we're ready to go upstairs aren't we and see some of the upper apartments so we've got that fabulous little spiral staircase and carry on our journey up there let's go upstairs [Music] now I would have come up those lovely spiral staircase into this tiny little room but it's one of my favorite rooms because it's Ambulance bedroom and the most obvious question is is it what's it well what I can say is it's got a very long tradition of being cooled and Berlin's bedroom and it certainly would have been a space intimately known to Anne because we are now above the parlor and therefore we are in the great chamber this is the soul are at the Sun Room or the private room so this that stretch right across this wing didn't it right across the west wing and this is the inner most private sanctum of the balloons you're very privileged people indeed if you are allowed into this space very close to the family and this is really where they spend all their time at even if they're not outside hunting and Hawking they're essentially in here living and sleeping is that right absolutely so we can definitely say this is an anteroom to that great chamber but in the great chamber which will go into shortly that is where they did everything basically this is their their private space now there's a lot of sort of I often get asked questions about where did people sleep where did am sleep where did George sleep where did the Lena the Thomas and Elizabeth sleep now my understanding is generally in these large open rooms they were they were they didn't have separate bedrooms you had to be right at the top of the aristocracy artistic R attic EEP if you like to have separate bedrooms it would more be like partitioned and everybody slept in in the family slept in Warren basically in one space is now right so much sounding absolutely so and we talked in the Great Hall about servants bedding down very much the same concept is applied to the Great Chamber and almost certainly the Lord and Lady of the house may have had a separate bedding down space but certainly the children would have all had sort of semi-permanent bed in that area often partitioned off with tapestry so it's a multifunctional space and that is repurposed throughout the day exactly it's also their private dining room that's where they dine on family yeah and so it's it's shifting all the time and the servants would have come up and maybe put this hanging spaces up and then then move them away during the day absolutely it's a multifunctional space it's very economical you only have to warm this one area for the family and so but yes if if you want to walk in abalones footsteps you're in the right so this whole wing is part of that absolutely having left amber Lynn's bedchamber we walk through into this much larger chamber so as you were saying this was once the great chamber part of the soul other extended across this entire wing it's been divvied up now hasn't it into a smaller chamber but so you know what else can you tell us about about this room so I told you originally that there are only two floors to this castle so originally it would have been a much larger vaulted ceiling to the great check I see and we know and that also mentioned earlier and of cleese this is also her great chamber this is where she spent most of her time yes because I've seen online there's an old photo out of Cleves chamber it's done as literally as a bedroom that's very yeah and it was a bedroom during this time so we know that when she's writing those letters from Hever it would have been in space yeah it's a really intimate space and you've got a couple of fantastic artifacts in here having yeah [Music] one of them that I really love is this incredible tapestry because it is it day for 15 2015 2013 15 20 s and do you want to tell us a bit about it and any kind of juicy tip this I think you know in light nerves with so this is very much a working theory in something in the Allison al curator and I am sort of speculating about at the moment but traditionally this was bought as the wedding tapestry of Mary Rose Henry dates younger sister yes to live to 12th and there's always been a question mark over that because it's a fruitless marriage only last very short period of time and as we know tapestries take a long time to create and so we wondered why a tapestry that might have even taken six years to create would have been continued after a less than six month marriage there is a clue however and it's just here and this actually says Esther gosh I'd never noticed that and the crown of Esther if this is her is very similar to the crown wore by Esther in Henry the eighth's own tapestries of Esther and Esther is actually quite pertinent rambling story because of course we know the John skipper almoner evokes the tension between Esther the Jewish Queen and her man who tries to bring down the Jewish Queen and of course c'mon is hanged this is largely seen as a threat I warned a shot from an to Cromwell and regarding the disappear having at the time so lights on this tapestry doesn't it it's a work in progress but yeah these things are slowly starting to unravel so do we think even if it's got a different story behind it that any of the balloons are actually portrayed in this picture well tradition is the if they cease the wedding tapestry that and is somewhere depicted in the tapestry some people say it's this young lady over here because we know that she's in attendance at that marriage everyone has their they do and I have I have mine which is that lady in the blue she looks exactly to me like the portrait but there you go we're always saying aren't we that we'll never know but things are coming up all the time we wait and see and this is this beautiful staircase gallery it's just filled with like it was such a trendy wasn't it feature in its day and I guess quite expensive to build what can you tell us about it well we know that galleries are really a status symbol as well as being a practical way of linking two wings of a medieval property together and if this was built by Thomas Boleyn as it is believed to have been it's one of the earlier galleries in England right to have been built and of course there's another one upstairs which again has a question mark over it as to when it was actually built but originally this is when the balloon staircase would have opened out in - hence the name the staircase gallery yes because the gas has changed everything around so originally the status was really right next to the door and would come up in like a yeah in a sort of u-shape up into that into this staircase gallery so this would have been an opening somewhere here in this gallery yeah you would arrive into this beautiful space and my understanding is of course as far as we know Thomas Berlin put in all the doors here and that was of course a very expensive undertaking it's hugely soin of course glass was a rather transient thing at that time as well if you weren't particularly wealthy you might even travel with your glass he had two different properties and it would just be crudely shuttered up for the poor servants yeah to retain the property and but yeah this is a stunning status symbol it's a way of progressing with your visitors to your most important room which of course is the long gallery upstairs yeah and we're gonna go there in a minute but just a highlight that you know with the change from the medieval house to the Tudor house that they had to have a way didn't they of linking the two sides so that you don't have to go outside or you know you wanted to be able to as you say progressed in comfort and style with all the paintings of your you know your most important relatives family or king or queen on the walls and this certainly delivers on all regards it really does [Music] having walked down the staircase gallery this brings us back into the East Side we are indeed to the east side so we've come back across the castle now and we're in what is called the Henry the eighth bedroom which is a fine-looking bedroom with this really magnificent bed but I get so many people say to me did Henry the eighth's say that oh I don't think he did but you tell us the story okay so I'm going to tell it from my perspective as a historian and we know that Henry almost certainly would have visited for example we know that he's staying at his property penshurst in 1528 and we know that Ann is here at Hever this is when she is deciding to marry him so it's almost inconceivable that he wouldn't have used this opportunity and this more private location to come and visit would he have ever stayed at Hever I'm not so sure and the reason I say that is because he owned his pens has place he can take most of his court all of his retainers all of his security essentially and it's only four miles down the road nothing nothing for further Tudor King so did he stay here it's possible and we know that Henry does stay at properties of this size and that we also know that he would have stayed in the most important rooms at that time which of course was the great chamber and we know that the billions have two properties so they also have a heath broker so they might have potentially moved out to brockett's and and Henry would have stayed here so I'm open to the idea we can't prove it either way essentially yeah okay right well you know there are lots of myths in Tudor history and sometimes as much as we'd like to believe something we might have to accept that maybe just not quite right might smack slightly of the so-called ambling room in the Queen's House at the Tower of London that was created in the Victorian era to a public who just wanted to see the spaces that Anne was in and really weren't prepared to accept that yeah didn't actually exist anyway so when we come and enjoy the Henry the eighth's bedroom we really just have to just enjoy it for what it is which is a fine recreation of a Tudor room it innocence you actually the room but the interiors are probably later and haven't we and that is genuine Tudor you were just mentioning that to me Kenny what can you tell us about the bed yes so a lot of research is actually being done by historian at the moment and someone very famous for researching Bates Jonathan soil mm-hmm and he has you know demonstrated that there is actually an ER on the bed so is that Edward Rex always a little Lizabeth Regina and we don't know yet so it's certainly a to debate so you say and you can see by the carving it's just full of symbolism I'm sure Jonathan's going to unpick that and it's got a whole story to tell us oh yeah I mean it's it's all there ready to be unfolded as well hmm very good this has got to be you know one of the most beautiful spaces because this is gorgeous long gallery here of course totally do burger for any Tudor house so what's the history of this gallery so we believe it's actually a Thomas Belinda insertion this is a huge status symbol might be one of the earliest long galleries in the country actually in a part of the house at least and this is you know the ultimate status symbol it's also a place of leisure this is where the balloons were truth and their daily exercise if the weather was fine for example and it's also a place to hang your most important possessions or paintings and display other items of value and of the interest your guests so it's traditionally thought this is where hem would have held court when he visited there are some lovely sketches of him doing so in this long long gallery and but yeah it's a remarkable space as to really elevated it with this fantastic past work on the ceiling it really is first [Music] and so to insert the gallery thomas berlin basically this is when he put the he he kind of put a roof a ceiling in the Great Hall below and this really sits above the Great Hall she spans the width of the castle it's above the Great Hall we're above that now and also the kitchens both of which would have had vaulted ceilings beforehand so although we're the long gallery I think this actually serves to demonstrate how small he becomes the width of the castle yeah so although it's a very large airy space it really demonstrates how dinky we are as well and you were always changing what's what's in this space aren't you and quite recently you opened a new exhibition of paintings I think that was David Starkey who put that together and there are some beautiful paintings in here so maybe we should just wander over and just have a look at a couple of them you I know visit to he the castle of course would be completely without of coming to look at a portrait of Anne Boleyn so here's the lady herself what can you tell us about this particular portrait sure well it's the iconic so-called Eva Rose portrait of Anne as described by numerous historians as the portrait of her the most reasonable one that meets the descriptions that we have of her and it's something I'm mysterious portrait it wasn't purchased by the asters or indeed our present known as the Guthrie family and we know that a portrait of Anne was here and for most of its history since she was here and we actually had very little provenance for this painting and Alison the curator of Hiva is hopefully going to be able to test the wood that it's painted on the paneling some dendrochronology on it and we're hoping to put it in the timeline of the portraits of of course the National Portrait Gallery and portrait was tested it wasn't Elizabethan so we're hopeful that ours might be a bit early yeah well there you go we're gonna have to watch this so yet more really interesting things coming our way it's all happening here at Hever well thank you so much I mean for showing us around this has been amazing and and it's so wonderful to finish our little tour here this is part of the end of a long gallery isn't it that it's supposed to be very historic absolutely I mean this is recently where Henry was supposed to have held court it's at the very end of the long gallery and therefore any visitors to Liam would have had to process right down to see them the man himself and you can imagine him can't you in all his splendor with his jewels and oh it must have been amazing but really this concludes our tour of the the you know the chewed particularly the Tudor part there is there are other rooms more related to the Edwardian period when the Astor's took over and looked after here the castle but so so just enormous thank you from me and but looking forward for people who maybe want to plan a visits here and I know you know it's at the top of every Tudor lovers list you know what what can people look forward to maybe in the year ahead and yeah anyway we've just coming towards the end of our counseling season so any other wants come suggesting I'd recommend that next year I mean it's a fantastic about to come to go to our events page we have an amazing array of events throughout the season and if that concludes with a fabulous Christmas experience here which I'd love to invite you at come and see oh wow I would love to we'll be right back here I've never been to Hiva at Christmas I've seen the pictures it looks amazing and I think our listeners and those people who may be watching this on YouTube would love to see more of hever dress for Christmas fantastic I mean it's a magical experience and also after September when we are able to announce some of the history and new history of Hiva and that has been conducted this year yes because you have been doing some digging haven't you and there are some interesting things that might be coming our way that we can all salivate over while we wait absolutely we're gonna have actually huge amount to tell you of the history at this place that has never been heard before and yeah I'm very very much looking forward to inviting you back around that Christmas period sir this is gonna be the best Christmas ever so I can't wait thank you so much you just say work and thank you [Music]

Channel: The Tudor Travel Guide

Views: 139,919

Rating: 4.6850395 out of 5

Keywords: Hever castle, anne boleyn, henry viii, tudor, castles, tudor tours, tour history holiday, tudor history tours, the tudor travel guide, henry8, King Henry III, Henry VIII and his six wives, the boleyns, Boleyn, visit kent, visit england, English castles, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, English manor houses

Id: HwA1P-Y2U5k

Length: 35min 32sec (2132 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 25 2019