THE OPEN-TOP CASTLE!
Lurking behind this historic ruin lies a beautifully crafted holiday let
Our holiday accommodation has no roof. The stone window frames have no glass and the two huge fireplaces are open to the elements. It’s absolutely wonderful. We are staying in ancient Astley Castle, an old ruin of a once grand Medieval House which has been renovated in a way I’ve never seen before. Most of it has been left as is — but behind the wrecked facade, there’s a sumptuous pod, with new bricks blending in beautifully with the old sandstone.
The modern living quarters, perhaps a quarter of the size of the original castle, sleep eight. It’s no surprise that in 2013 it picked up Britain’s most prestigious architecture award, the Stirling Prize.
Astley has been home to three queens, including Lady Jane Grey, sovereign for just nine days in 1553 before being ousted by Mary I.
The castle was a hotel in the 1950s, but was later burned down in a devastating fire in 1978. Over the next 30 years it was vandalised and methodically stripped.
It’s now run by the Landmark Trust and, as with all its properties, is high end. Some £2.7 million was spent on the refurbishment — and it shows, with handsome windows, three top-spec bathrooms and four bedrooms.
The best bit is the vast living room upstairs, with its views of the pond, the sleepy church and the rolling Warwickshire countryside. There’s a lift for anyone who can’t take the stairs.
When we arrive, we park up in the old stableyard, which is 200 metres from the castle. My sons Dexter, 19, and Geordie, 16, are put to work bringing up the luggage in two wheelbarrows.
We have no television, no wifi and, as we are in darkest Warwickshire, next to no phone signal. Instead, we pass our evenings the oldfashioned way by chatting, reading and playing games.
One hot afternoon, we swim in Astley Pool, once part of the castle, now run by a local fishing club. It is deliciously refreshing, and the fishermen don’t seem to mind us splashing through the waterlilies.
We are in verdant Mill On The Floss country. The writer George Eliot was born on the neighbouring Arbury Estate; she writes about Astley Castle and its church in her Scenes Of Clerical Life.
Our favourite haunt is the Astley Book Farm two miles away — one of the biggest second-hand bookshops I’ve ever visited. It has a great cafe with a lot of cakes.
I can’t resist: I buy more than £150 worth of books.
We make the trip to Warwick Castle. I imagine it’s going to be the usual stuffy experience, but not a bit of it — the place is run by Merlin (which also runs Alton Towers). The teenagers find the dungeons deliciously terrifying. Coventry Cathedral is also nearby — famously destroyed by Luftwaffe bombs in 1940. I love the stained glass in John Piper’s Baptistry Window.
One weird thing: at night, as we play hide and seek in Astley’s pitch-dark living room, I see an ethereal figure standing by the window. At first I think it’s Geordie, but he’s hiding near the cooker. I’m later told that I’m not the first to have seen her.