Sudeley Castle

I didn't manage to get onto Blip on Saturday so blipping both days at once.

Today we visited Sudeley Castle just a few miles from Cheltenham. This is where King Henry VIII visited with Anne Boleyn and also where Katherine Parr, his surviving wife, is interred.

One of Katherine Parr's attendants, who spent time with her at Sudeley, was the Lady Jane Grey who became Queen after Edward VI, famously for nine days, before she was executed.

Queen Elizabeth I also spent time at Sudeley, so it certainly has a very royal history.

During the Civil War Sudeley was plundered and vandelised and then spent two centuries as a ruin. In the middle of the 19th Century, two wealthy brothers John and William Dent noticed the romantic ruin when out riding. They had amassed a considerable fortune in the glove making industry and decided to purchase the castle and lands and restore it.

Their nephew continued the restoration with his wife Emma Brocklehurst and since then the Dent and Brocklehurst families have lived at and restored the house, chapel and gardens through wars and peace, through ups and downs and with enormous death duties at various times, into the family home and visitor attraction it is today.

This picture is of the chapel with a couple of beautifully attired ladies adding some historical colour.