National Trust Bodiam Castle - Wider River Walk, East Sussex

I adore the National Trust, I make no secret of that and I've posted so many times about the sites we have visited. Bodiam Castle is probably the closest site to my home, so we have been there dozens and dozens of times. My husband and one of our daughters love to feed the ducks (with birdseed, no human food please), whilst I have a coffee and read my book. It works well. This is one of my husband's photos from a recent visit.

You can read about our previous visits to Bodiam Castle, about the superb Living History events they put on in normal times and how it is fabulous for all ages. This post is about the wider area, if you park at Bodiam Castle you can take a 3KM river walk and enjoy some great views as well as time at the castle itself.

This is perfect at the moment, as you can't explore inside the castle right now, so it gives you somewhere extra to walk and make your visit really worthwhile, as the actual Bodiam Castle grounds are not very extensive. 

We are all being encouraged to book in advance before visiting any National Trust site at the moment as this allows the site to prepare and ensure that social distancing can be maintained. We have been to Bodiam Castle a number of times in the last year and we have always felt safe with sanitiser available, toilet entry being managed, the cafe having a one way system and card payments only and as the site is outside, you can keep a good distance from other people. 

Bodiam Castle - Amazing History and Great for all the Family

Amazing History

The other week after Storm Clara, my family were desperate to get out for a bit and enjoy the blue sky that had shown itself. As it was already after lunch we didn’t want to travel too far and thus decided to head just twenty minutes up the road from us to Bodiam. I hadn't been to the castle for 3 or 4 years and whilst nothing much changes at this 14th century moated castle, the views are always beautiful and there are plenty of walks local to the castle to enjoy.

Bodiam Castle is what many people refer to as a ‘proper’ castle as it’s outer walls are beautifully intact, and it sits fully surrounded by a moat. It makes for the most magnificent pictures and is fun inside too, despite being ruins. You can still climb some of the spiral staircases to go up and see how it looks from the top of the castle on a rampart and also the Posters tower, but be aware these are narrow, well-worn and spindly stone steps. If you don’t like enclosed spaces or have physical difficulties they might not be for you. I’m fully able, but was a bit nervous and took it slowly up and down the rampart staircases. However, I declined to go up the tower as that has two-way traffic on one small staircase and that was too much for me. My husband and daughter went up there and said it had amazing views though.

A year in photos - week 20

It has been a lovely week as my parents have been here to stay and that has made us all super happy.

Last Sunday we headed out to a National Trust property, Batemans and enjoyed the fresh air as we walked around. I captured some nice pictures and I'll share them all in a Batemans post sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Monday was community day at my home. This is where we shut the conference centre to all guests and all 90 or so of us who live and work onsite came together for a full day to fun, food and fellowship. We had a blast! After school the children joined us and they had great fun playing games and decorating cupcakes!

It was lovely on the weekdays to be able to go out with just my Mum and Dad and enjoy some lunch and good conversation with them, we had a particularly nice visit to Bodiam Castle (yes I know, another National Trust property!)

On the morning of heading to Bodiam, my new macro filter kit arrived for my camera, so I was pleased to give this a try and for under £15 for 4 different filters I'm pretty pleased with my first try.

The end of the week was just about catching up and getting all sorts of bits and pieces done.

I hope you have had a fabulous week, Mich x

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Living History at Bodiam Castle, East Sussex

A National Trust leaflet fell out of a magazine the other day and tempted me to spend just over £70 on a year's membership for all the family. So given that I had just spent out, we decided we better start to make good use of it and off we went to the 14th century Bodiam Castle.

We had visited back in the Autumn before we were members and you can have a great walk around just for the cost of the car park (£3 for a car) and you only have to pay if you want to go in the castle. This time armed with our temporary membership card we accessed all areas and had a fabulous time looking around.

When we went it was half-term and there was archery available on site if we wished (with a charge) but we felt it was too windy and when we went in the autumn there were craft activities for £1 per child.

This time around there were some great living history actors in the castle and it was great to chat to them and find out what life was like and they also took a little talk which included some drama that we all got involved with and my twins were star actresses, turning the spit for a roasting hog! lol

There are some good displays in the castle if you wish to learn more and a small room with an informative video to watch. The girls had an 'eye-spy' sheet and they had to spot things around the castle and JJ had an A3 map of how the castle would have looked and he loved being our tour guide and telling us what would have happened in each room.

The boys climbed up the narrow and steep staircase and took a windy wall across the top of the front of the castle whilst the girls and I explored some more.

All the children enjoyed our time at Bodiam Castle, there are plenty of fields to run around and normally there is a WW2 shelter that the kids can play in but today it was closed due to the flooding and a fallen tree. We were looking around for a good couple of hours and no-one was bored. It would be a great place to take a picnic when the weather is finer.

We finished off our afternoon in the cafe with a cream tea. The prices were fairly reasonable, I spent £14.00 on drinks and a cream scone for all 5 of us.

Check out the National Trust site for full details of costs, opening times etc.

Our day finished in a harmonious way, which is always amazing with my kids, so nice to see them having fun and getting along without any squabbles!

Check out my more recent post from 2020 about visiting Bodiam Castle as a family with older kids.

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