Sissinghurst Castle and Garden in Tunbridge Wells

You're standing at Sissinghurst Castle, deep in the green Kent countryside. Funny thing is, it was never really a castle. It only got that name in the eighteenth century, when French prisoners of war were held here. Start with the long brick gatehouse, with its decorated gables and chimneys. Sir John Baker, one of Henry the Eighth's Privy Councillors, built that part in the 1530s. Behind it rises the slender tower, with a staircase turret tucked in on each side. His son Richard built it around 1560 as the entrance to a huge courtyard house. In 1573 he even entertained Queen Elizabeth the First here.