Tiverton Castle

Such a beautiful Sunday afternoon could not be wasted indoors. You get the feeling that you need to grab all the sunshine you can get as you may not see it for another month or two! We went to Tiverton Castle. Tiverton is the first town in Devon that you come to when you drive west on the M5. As we live just the other side of the Somerset/Devon border, it was an ideal day out.

The castle is only open on Sundays, Thursdays and Bank Holiday Mondays between Easter and the end of October, so now is your chance to go before it shuts for the winter.

You can explore the beautiful gardens and vegetable garden, and wander along the defence wall looking down to the river below, and in and around the ruined part of the castle. 

Then you wander inside, wishing for the heat of the sun in the damp castle rooms, through the ground floor and up into the round tower. Each room represents an era or an historic person, so one may be a 17th century living room and another is about Napoleon. The guide is exceptionally informative, and because it is a private castle you are encouraged to pick up cannonballs or try on helmets to demonstrate why the noseplate could be down or up (down to protect your face, up to fatally headbutt your enemy). There is also a guararobe to peer into, where you learn that children used to clean them (I wish mine cleaned their toilet!).

It is not a large castle and the visit itself did not take longer than an hour and a half. What I desperately needed was a tea and cake at the end, which I had to wait until I was home for.

The admission charge is a little pricey, however, as this is a private castle, you know that your payment is going to be spent on the castle itself and not swallowed into some large company.

Love Mrs Jones x