Arundel Castle

Stand still for a moment and listen. Rooks call from the tall trees, and somewhere below you the River Arun slides quietly toward the sea. Under your feet, gravel crunches. Above you, grey flint and pale stone climb in towers and battlements. The castle seems to grow out of the hill itself. On a clear day, the low water meadows of West Sussex stretch away to the south, and the air carries a faint trace of salt.

This is Arundel Castle, and its story begins with the Norman Conquest of 1066. Soon after William the Conqueror took the English throne, he gave land here to one of his most trusted men, Roger de Montgomery. Roger built a fortress at the end of the eleventh century. The position made sense. The hill guarded the river crossing and the route from the coast inland. Whoever held Arundel could watch ships, traders and armies move through this gap in the South Downs.

Look for the oldest part first: the round stone keep on its high mound. It is called a motte, which simply means an artificial earth hill raised to lift a tower above the land around it. Early Norman castles often followed this pattern, with a mound and a walled yard beside it. Here the keep still sits on top of its mound, and the climb up to it gives you the clearest sense of how a medieval lord saw his territory.

Over the centuries, the castle passed through several great families. The Fitzalan Earls of Arundel held it through much of the Middle Ages. Then, in the sixteenth century, marriage brought the castle to the Howard family. The Howards became Dukes of Norfolk, and the castle has been their family seat for more than four hundred years. Here is the first surprise for many visitors. This is not a ruin or a museum alone. It is still a family home.

The Howards lived through some of the most dangerous moments in English history. They were close to the throne, and that closeness could be deadly. Members of the family rose to great power under the Tudors, and some lost their heads for it. The family also remained Catholic after England became a Protestant country. For generations, that choice kept them outside much of public life. It also shaped this castle in ways you can still see today.

In the seventeenth century, war came to these walls. During the English Civil War, the conflict between King Charles the First and Parliament, Arundel changed hands more than once. In the winter of 1643 and 1644, Parliamentary forces laid siege to the castle. Cannon fire caused heavy damage, and the defenders eventually surrendered. Afterwards, much of the fortress stood broken for many years. The castle you see now owes a great deal to later rebuilding.

That rebuilding came in stages. In the eighteenth century, the family began to repair and update the damaged buildings. Then, in the late nineteenth century, the fifteenth Duke of Norfolk carried out a vast reconstruction. He chose the Gothic style, inspired by medieval architecture, with pointed arches, tall windows and dramatic towers. So much of what looks medieval here is in fact Victorian. That is the second surprise. The romance of the castle is partly a nineteenth-century idea of the Middle Ages.

Queen Victoria came here in 1846, and the family prepared rooms specially for her visit. Inside, you can walk through grand spaces such as the Baron's Hall, with its high timber roof, and the long library, lined with dark wood and old books. The rooms hold furniture, tapestries and portraits of the family across many generations. As you move between them, notice how the faces in the paintings change with the fashions of each century.

One of the most unusual places lies just beside the castle grounds: the Fitzalan Chapel. It forms the eastern end of the parish church of Saint Nicholas. But here is the twist. The main part of the church is Anglican, while the Fitzalan Chapel is Catholic. A screen divides the two. For many years this made it a rare building, with two Christian traditions under a single roof. The chapel is also the burial place of the Dukes of Norfolk, and their tombs and effigies lie within.

The gardens deserve real time. The most famous is the Collector Earl's Garden, created in the early twenty-first century. It honours Thomas Howard, a seventeenth-century earl known for collecting art and ancient sculpture. The garden is playful and formal at once. Look for its pavilions, water features and carved wooden structures that imitate stone. Elsewhere, you find walled kitchen gardens, glasshouses and planting that changes colour with the seasons.

From the walls and towers, the views open out in every direction. To one side lies the small town of Arundel, with its steep streets, flint cottages and antique shops. Above the town rises Arundel Cathedral, a Catholic cathedral built in the Gothic style in the late nineteenth century. It was also funded by the fifteenth Duke. Its spire and the castle towers face each other across the rooftops, two parts of one family vision.

The castle still carries a living role in national life. The Duke of Norfolk holds the hereditary title of Earl Marshal. In this role, the Duke organises major state ceremonies, including coronations and royal funerals. So the family that once lived in danger for its faith now helps to stage some of the country's most formal occasions. Inside these walls, centuries of loyalty, risk and survival sit side by side.

Before you leave, turn back and look at the castle once more. Notice how the old keep and the Victorian towers sit together on the same hill. Listen again for the rooks, and for the river below. As you walk down into the town, the castle stays in view above the rooftops. It has watched over this valley for nearly a thousand years. Today, for a little while, it has watched over you too.