Hever Castle & Its Dazzling Daffodils

The castle – quite a modest affair as castles go – was the home of Anne Boleyn, second wife of Henry VIII, so it was tempting to picture the couple wandering through the carpet of daffodils beneath gnarled apple trees in Anne Boleyn’s Orchard. The truth is that in Tudor times the castle was set in boggy marshland – the orchard and the surrounding gardens are 20th century additions.

When American William Waldorf Astor acquired the castle in 1903 he devoted himself to its restoration and to creating a garden that reflected his love of the Tudors and would also be a suitable setting for the classical statuary he had collected when he was Ambassador to Rome. In today’s money, he spent £1billion on the works. The garden we see today retains much of his design, although adapted to be cared for by a team of twelve gardeners, as opposed to the eighty to one hundred who kept it in immaculate order in Astor’s time!

Hever is currently holding its first Dazzling Daffodils event so this, rather than the wider garden, was the main focus of my visit. It transpires that daffodils – and not just the native Narcissus pseudonarcissus – have been around for a very long time. Johnny gave an example of N.telamonius plenus which is reported as early as 1620. Many of these old cultivars were lost during the Second World War when