Qualla: Westenhanger Castle https://qualla.com/westenhanger-castle en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:34:10 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/0/d/westenhanger-castle-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Westenhanger Castle https://qualla.com/westenhanger-castle Westenhanger Castle: Introduction https://qualla.com/westenhanger-castle/ Photo credit Ian Knox, CC BY-SA 2.0. Thousands of armed men were hiding in the woodlands around Westenhanger in 1656, waiting for a signal. The exiled Charles II had been persuaded to return to England, and Westenhanger - well placed on the Kent coast - was the trap. When the king crossed the threshold, the order would be given, and the conspirators would rush in to murder him and his entourage. The plot was thwarted by a warning that reached Charles just in time. He turned back. Four years later he came across legally, with no ambushes, and took the throne in the Restoration. Westenhanger never housed the king's murder; it housed only the possibility of it, and that is one of half a dozen reasons why this fortified manor house near Folkestone Racecourse deserves more attention than it gets.

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Image: Ian Knox | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/0/d/westenhanger-castle-wp/u10d-westenhanger-castle-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Westenhanger Castle: King Canute and the Norman Stone https://qualla.com/westenhanger-castle/ Photo credit Ian Knox, CC BY-SA 2.0. The estate's recorded history begins in 1035, when King Canute - the Anglo-Danish ruler of England, Denmark, and Norway - owned the land. The de Criol family built the first permanent structure on the site in 1343, descendants of the 13th-century Bertram de Criol. What they put u...

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Image: Ian Knox | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/0/d/westenhanger-castle-wp/u10d-westenhanger-castle-king-canute-and-the-norman-stone.mp3 0:06 2 full Westenhanger Castle: Rosamund and the King's Mistresses https://qualla.com/westenhanger-castle/ Photo credit Ian Knox, CC BY-SA 2.0. Westenhanger's centuries of royal connections collect into a single dazzling list. Henry II spent time here, and tradition links the place with Rosamund de Clifford - Fair Rosamund, the most famous of Henry's mistresses, whose love story with the king passed through legend and in...

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Image: Ian Knox | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/0/d/westenhanger-castle-wp/u10d-westenhanger-castle-rosamund-and-the-kings-mistresses.mp3 0:06 3 full Westenhanger Castle: The Plot That Failed https://qualla.com/westenhanger-castle/ Photo credit Ian Knox, CC BY-SA 2.0. The 1656 plot to assassinate the exiled Charles II is one of those incidents that hovers on the edge of being a turning point and then steps back from it. With Cromwell in power and the Royalists scattered in exile, agents of various interests were trying to lure the prince back ...

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Image: Ian Knox | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/0/d/westenhanger-castle-wp/u10d-westenhanger-castle-the-plot-that-failed.mp3 0:06 4 full Westenhanger Castle: Decline and Discovery https://qualla.com/westenhanger-castle/ Photo credit Ian Knox, CC BY-SA 2.0. Westenhanger descended in the Smythe family for two and a half centuries until the death in 1869 of Percy Smythe, the 8th and last Viscount Strangford, who died without an heir. The estate went to his nephew Captain Hugh Baillie, who also died childless in 1876. With no clear inh...

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Image: Ian Knox | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/0/d/westenhanger-castle-wp/u10d-westenhanger-castle-decline-and-discovery.mp3 0:06 5 full Westenhanger Castle: A Ship in Kent https://qualla.com/westenhanger-castle/ Photo credit David Anstiss, CC BY-SA 2.0. Westenhanger has one more story to tell - and this one connects an obscure Kentish manor to the founding of the United States. Customer Smythe's son, Sir Thomas Smythe, was the founder and governor of the Virginia Company. He commissioned a small ship for the East India Company i...

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Image: David Anstiss | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/u/1/0/d/westenhanger-castle-wp/u10d-westenhanger-castle-a-ship-in-kent.mp3 0:06 6 full