If walls could talk...

In 1916, Lord Curzon, the one-time Viceroy of India, got his hands on a long-awaited prize: the deeds to Bodiam Castle, one the country’s best-known and best-loved medieval fortresses near Robertsbridge in East Sussex. As he wrote at the time, “So rare a treasure should neither be lost to our country nor desecrated by irreverent hands.” He was as good as his word: with the architect William Weir, he restored parts of the castle – notably the moat – but it was his final act that was perhaps the most important of all in sealing Bodiam’s fortunes. For upon his death, he bequeathed it to the National Trust, under whose auspices it remains today, preserved for the nation.

There are few sights so steeped in romance or deserving of conservation than that of this medieval castle, which rises