BRITAIN’S CROWNING GLORIES

As we kick off our brilliant National Trust ticket giveaway, why ANYONE can walk in the footsteps of royalty at some of our best-preserved palaces and castles…

HUNDREDS of incredible castles, palaces and stately mansions that once played host to kings, queens, princes and princesses are today preserved by the National Trust for us all to enjoy.you can find out just how the high and mightiest lived without forking out a king’s ransom, just by visiting some of these national treasures.you might learn the fate of a warrior king, or even bump into the ghost of Anne Boleyn…

BLICKLING HALL, NORFOLK

THIS impressive Jacobean house stands on the site of a medieval manor thought to have been the birthplace of Anne Boleyn, the second wife of HENRYVIII who had her beheaded after she failed to provide him with a male heir.

Her headless ghost is said to return every year on May 19, the anniversary of her execution in 1536.As night falls, the Grey Lady, her head on her lap, is said to ride up to the house in a coach drawn by a headless horseman, then vanishes into thin air.

Legend has it that when news of Anne’s death reached Blickling Hall, four headless horses were seen dragging the body of a headless man across Norfolk.

Anne’s father, Sir Thomas, is also said to haunt the area, having been cursed for taking no action to prevent his daughter from being executed. Each year, his ghost tries to cross 12 bridges before cock’s crow. His frantic route is said to take him from Blickling to Aylsham, Burgh, Buxton, Coltishall, Meyton, Oxnead and Wroxham.

CORFE CASTLE, DORSET

DOMINATING the village below it, the dramatic ruins of Corfe Castle hold many royal stories of intrigue, treachery and treason. In 978, King Edward, known as ‘the Martyr’, was believed to have been stabbed to death here while visiting his stepmother Queen Aelfthryth.

Edward was the elder son of King Edgar the Peaceful and though not his acknowledged heir, he was chosen to rule in 975 by his church supporters in preference to his nine-year-old half-brother Aethelred the Unready.

Aethelred (whose nickname ‘Unready’ meant ‘badly advised’), duly succeeded to the throne, aged 12, after Edward’s murder. No surprise, then, that his mother Queen Aelfthryth remains a chief suspect. In later years, King John transformed the castle into a royal prison, before it was reduced to ruins in 1646 by Parliamentarians during the English Civil

War.

DUNHAM MASSEY, CHESHIRE

THE estate is a green oasis nestled between the city of Manchester and the rural tranquillity of Cheshire, but its royal links stretch to the heart of Africa.

In 1936, the Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, gave a speech to the League of Nations voicing his concerns about the rise of fascism. His warnings were ignored and shortly afterwards Italy’s fascist leader Benito Mussolini invaded Ethiopia and the Emperor was exiled to the UK.

While staying in Bath, the Emperor was contacted by Roger Grey, 10th Earl of Stamford and a member of the local League of Nations branch, who was sympathetic to Ethiopia’s plight.

The Earl invited the Emperor to his home at Dunham Massey in 1938 and this led to a lifelong friendship and the flying of Ethiopia’s Lion of Judah flag on Selassie’s birthday each year until his death in 1975.

TREDEGAR HOUSE, NEWPORT

THIS estate was home to the Morgan family for more than 500 years.the Morgans were one of the most powerful and influential families in South Wales, who claimed descent from thewelsh Princes supposedly dating back to Hywel Dda in 900AD. Although these links haven’t been formally traced, we do know that Llewelyn ap Morgan lost much of the original estate in 1403 for supporting the rebellion of the Prince ofwales,

Owain Glyndwr.

Llewelyn’s descendants recovered the lands and added more throughout the 15th century, before Sir John ap Morgan’s support of Henry Tudor in 1485 reaffirmed the Morgans as a powerful gentry family. Sir

John was given the titles of ‘Sheriff of

Wentloog and Newport’ and ‘Steward’ of the Machen Commote.atudor stone house was built to reflect the Morgan’s new status and even hosted Charles I as a distinguished guest in 1645.The remaining wing of the Tudor house can still be seen today, hidden behind the impressive red-brick mansion that was built at the end of the 17th century.

KNOLE, KENT

BUILT on the site of a medieval manor house, Knole had been a palace for successive Archbishops of Canterbury for more than 80 years when, in 1538, King HENRYVIII decided it was an ideal residence for his daughter – later Mary I – during his divorce from her mother Catherine of Aragon. Henry, who enjoyed hunting in

Knole’s deer park, simply forced the Archbishop to hand it over.

Knole remained a royal residence throughout the Tudor period until it came into the hands of Elizabeth I. In 1561, she gave Knole to her favourite courtier, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.then, in 1566, the house passed to Elizabeth’s treasurer and second cousin,thomas Sackville, whose family still live in apartments at Knole, though the property is owned and cared for by the National Trust.

● Tickets must be booked in advance.

MOSELEY OLD HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE

FOLLOWING defeat in the final battle of the Civil War, the Battle of Worcester, King Charles II fled disguised in servants’ clothes as he headed for France.

Cold and wet, and with his feet bleeding from ill-fitting shoes, Charles arrived at the back door of Moseley Old Hall in the early morning of September 8, 1651, five days after the battle, and was welcomed in by the Royalist owner, Thomas Whitgreave.

Charles took refuge at the house for two days and nights, sneaking out in the guise of a servant with Jane Lane of nearby Bentley Hall.if you visit you can see a letter of thanks from the King to Jane, the bed on which he slept, and the priest hole in which he hid whilewhitgreave persuaded a search party of Parliamentarian soldiers that he had not fought atworcester and had no idea where the King might be.

SUTTON HOO, SUFFOLK

IT IS believed that Sutton Hoo is the final resting place of Raedwald, the Anglo-saxon warrior King of East Anglia, regarded as one of the most powerful of the English kings of the time. He was referred to in the Anglosaxon Chronicle as a bretwalda (an Old English term meaning ‘Britain-ruler’) and he is credited with becoming the first King of the East Angles to become a Christian.

The discovery in 1939 of an ancient mound containing the burial ship and treasured possessions of Raedwald is considered one of the greatest ever archaeological finds.

Although the original assemblage of rich grave goods are now on display in the British Museum, Sutton Hoo showcases a collection of remarkable replicas.a major new exhibition also opens on May 19. Swords of Kingdoms: The Staffordshire Hoard at Sutton Hoo, will bring together original treasures from the Great Ship Burial alongside objects from the Staffordshire Hoard.

CRAGSIDE, NORTHUMBERLAND

PEOPLE flocked to Cragside from all over the world, drawn by tales of the ‘modern magician’s palace’, as the home of Newcastle inventor and armaments manufacturer Sir William (later Lord) Armstrong was known.

Armstrong used the engineering skills that had made his fortune to create hydraulic machinery, which supplied hot and cold water to the house, powered the lifts and rotated the spit in the kitchen.an internal telephone system provided room-to-room communications and Cragside was the first house in the world to be lit by hydro-electric power, using man-made lakes and underground piping.

Honoured guests included the Shah of Persia and the King of Siam and, in 1884, the Prince and Princess ofwales – the future King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra – stayed at the house during their tour of the North rather than stay in any of the region’s castles or royal homes.

CASTLE WARD, DOWNPATRICK, NORTHERN IRELAND

CASTLE Ward, near Strangford, has been the home to fictional royalty as the location of Winterfell, the backdrop for the pilot and first season of TV’S Game of Thrones.

GOT fans will also know the estate, overlooking Strangford Lough, for the Whispering Wood and for key scenes including Robb Stark’s Camp, the Baelor battle and the confrontation between Brienne and the

Stark men.

There are, however, real royal links, too, as the Viscount and Viscountess Bangor who created the estate had

their own noble lineage, with Lady Anne being descended from King James II’S second wife Anne Hyde and a first cousin of her daughter Queen Anne.

The house is most notable for its contrasting styles because Lady Anne and husband Bernard could not agree on décor, so they split it down the middle and her half was decorated in the fashionable Gothic style while his was done in the more classical Palladian style.

LANHYDROCK, CORNWALL

RICHARD Robarts was regarded as ‘the wealthiest in the west’ when he bought the estate in 1621, having inherited a fortune of £300,000 (£80million at today’s prices) and more than 40,000 acres, but it was his Puritan son John who really made it a family home.

He had five children by his first wife Lucy, and 14 by his second wife Letitia, who he married when he was 42 and she was 17. Remarkably he also had time to be an avid reader.

John died in London in 1685 after a successful life in politics and left, as a legacy, the library at Lanhydrock with works on theology, history, politics and science.

One book once belonged to King Henry VIII, and helped him to annul his marriage to Catherine ofaragon.an inventory number discovered inside the book identified it as once belonging to Henry’s chief library at Westminster Palace.

GHOSTLY GOINGS-ON: The Jacobean house at Blickling, the estate of which is said to be haunted by Ann Boleyn, inset

POWER AND GLORY: The seat of the powerful Morgans at Tredegar House, left, and Corfe Castle

THE HOMES of pop royalty and the Queen of Crime are among the many places with celebrity connections looked after by the National Trust. The landscape around Bateman’s, East Sussex, the former home of author Rudyard Kipling, inspired him to write famous stories such as Puck of Pook’s Hill, while the Trust also cares for Mendips and 20 Forthlin Road, the childhood homes in Liverpool of Beatles John Lennon and Paul Mccartney. Buckland Abbey, Devon, was the home where one of Britain’s greatest seafarers, Sir Francis Drake, planned his assault on the Spanish Armada. Chartwell, Kent, was the family home of Sir Winston Churchill, defeater of Hitler’s Nazis. Greenway, Devon, was the holiday home of crime author Agatha Christie and where she set the murder of Marleen Tucket in Dead Man’s Folly. Similarly, Thomas Hardy took huge inspiration from the countryside he grew up in with Hardy’s Cottage, Dorset, his birthplace. Hughenden, in the rolling Chilterns countryside, was the home of Queen Victoria’s favourite prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, while Beatrix Potter bought 17th-century farmhouse Hill Top, Cumbria, with royalties earned from Peter Rabbit. Also in Cumbria, in Cockermouth, is the Georgian townhouse where romantic poet William Wordsworth was born, and in Lincolnshire, at Sir Isaac Newton’s birthplace, Woolsthorpe Manor, you can still see the apple tree that inspired his discoveries about gravity. Then there is Shugborough, Staffordshire, the former home of photographer, relative and confidant of the Royal Family, Patrick, Lord Lichfield. DAY TRIPPER: Sir Paul Mccartney’s early home

ROYAL LINKS: The Reynolds room at Knole, left, and the gardens at Cragside