Dr Claire Kennan, Bader College Research Coordinator. In March 2023, a group of students came together to record some scenes from the play Making Moonshine! written by local resident Verily Anderson in 1957-8. Now kept safely in our archive, the play is set in ‘Swirling Castle’, a clear fictionalisation of Herstmonceux Castle. The play features…
Category: Archives
Making Moonshine! How an Archived Document was Brought Back to Life
Grace Ewart Our story begins with the tale of Verily Anderson. A young girl whose family made frequent visits to Herstmonceux Castle throughout the 1920’s, as her father was the Rector of a Herstmonceux’s All Saints’ Church. In her memoir, Castellans of Herstmonceux, Anderson detailed life in the castle during the Roaring 20’s through the…
Postcards from the Past
The humble postcard is a quintessentially British souvenir. Often picked up casually at the gift shop of a historic house, art gallery or even beach front, it acts as a reminder of places visited and memories made which can be shared with friends and family back home. However, this was not always the intended purpose…
This is the Life! (1918 Edition)
The picturesque Herstmonceux Castle and its estate have featured in many a glossy magazine over the years. In 1918, just a few years into Colonel Claude Lowther’s restoration project, the castle and its grounds were featured in Country Life. Country Life, which was established in 1897 by Edward Hudson, went on to become a household…
Herstmonceux Castle in the 1921 Census
On 6th January 2022 the 1921 census, which has been closed for a century, was made available to the public for the first time. The census is a survey which, usually, is taken every ten years to provide a snapshot of all the people and households in England and Wales. The object of a census…
Unlocking the Castle Archives
Tucked away in an unassuming office, hidden in the eaves and separated from the main thoroughfares of castle life is Room 203. Unlike other, more famous rooms (think Room 101 for example), this is not a room where we send things to be lost, forgotten and done away with, quite the opposite in fact; this…