Now that is finally the summer holidays the plan is to fill as much as I can during my days off with things with the children, I had a few days off due to holiday being booked and myself and Neil decided to take the children out for a little adventure. Upnor Castle is an Elizabethan fort that is situated on the west banks of the river Medway in Kent.
The main thing I wanted as to go somewhere and do something historic for the day and thanks to Neil we decided on either Upnor Castle or Rochester Castle and thanks to being unable to find any parking spaces in Rochester, we opted for Upnor, which I think in the end, turned out to be a pretty good idea.
It reminded me very much of Castle Rising which I visited in April this year, given that its smaller and not very touristy which is something of a rare find in this day of age where everyone is a Tiktok influencer, funded by the national lottery and is part of the English Heritage that helps to protect and restore many of our historical sites.
The Castle itself is very basic and small, there wasn’t a lot to see however that doesn’t take away from the charm and the history of the place, Upnor was designed very much like every other fort along the river to protect the Royal Naval ships further down the river and was built on order by Elizabeth 1 due to tension with Spain and other European powers between 1559 and 1567 housing around 80 men and various guns and cannons, However in 1667 it failed at defending against a Dutch fleet which was able to breach defences and despite retreating still managed to cause damage and burn the dock down.
We had a lovely little explore of the castle itself, when we got our tickets the children were given a little quiz that they had to do while walking about, there was clues in some of the areas of the castle which would match up to a flag of a country and in the end when we left the children, well when I say children it was just Robin and Amelia got given some badges for their achievement, we then spent some money in the old shop and then decided on where we was going to next which was Herne Bay to hunt some sea glass, eat fish and chips and play in the arcades.
All together it was a lovely little adventure out to learn about our fantastic history, I always try and take my children to places that can pique their interest in their countries history and learn more about the past, It was also really nice to sit under the trees in the grounds and watch the river out in front of you, looking over at the lovely homes dotted along the bank.
If you ever are in the area of Kent then I do recommend Upnor Castle a visit, its a peaceful piece of history that not many people would know was there.
Sarah
To view more of our adventures, check out the adventures tag.
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