Otford Castle

Otford Castle stands on a low rise beside the River Darent in the village of Otford, Kent. The remains sit within a quiet moated enclosure that once held a grand archiepiscopal palace. A 19th-century farmhouse now occupies part of the site, but the medieval fabric survives in scattered fragments. The North-West Tower rises three storeys above the water, its garderobes still visible. A section of the boundary wall runs along Bubblestone Road, marking the original precinct. The palace was home to fifty-two archbishops from the 12th to the 16th century. Archbishop Robert Winchelsey enlarged the manor in the early 14th century and built a chapel. Archbishop William Warham added the North, East and West Ranges around a great courtyard before 1518. Erasmus and Hans Holbein the Younger visited during Warham’s rebuilding. Henry VIII stayed overnight in 1520 on his way to the Field of the Cloth of Gold. Visitors today see the three-storey North-West Tower with its garderobes and leaded roof. The lower gallery has been turned into cottages, and part of the Great Gatehouse remains. A stretch of the ancient boundary wall can be followed on Bubblestone Road. Becket’s Well, 150 yards east, recalls Thomas Becket’s visits before his exile. The whole four-acre site is protected as an ancient monument.