Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, is one of the country’s best-known and most controversial queens. The woman whose allure was great enough to tip the country into religious schism grew up in Hever Castle, nestled amid 125 acres of grounds in rural Kent. With the new Boleyn Apartment opening to visitors from June 26, the castle is giving visitors the chance to take a step back in time to the Tudor era and experience life like the future queen. “This is an incredibly rare opportunity to faithfully redesign the world of Anne Boleyn and her family as they would have recognised it,” Kate McCaffrey, the castle’s historian, said ahead of the opening.
The suite of rooms that make up the Boleyn Apartment at Hever are the only known set that were lived in by the Boleyn family to survive unmodified. This gave historians at the castle the idea to recreate a physical environment that would have been familiar to Anne. Floors are covered in rush matting, walls adorned with friezes or tapestries and rooms equipped with 16th-century furniture. Following a year-long renovation process, the suite of rooms also takes visitors on a journey through Anne’s changing status — from landowner’s daughter to future queen — each one more luxurious than the last.
Hever was Anne’s refuge at different periods of her life — first as a child before being sent to be educated on the Continent. During her time at courts in the Netherlands and France Anne developed many of the interests befitting a young woman of her status and that would later entrance Henry: the French language; literature and philosophy; and, particularly, music. Anne brought these interests back to Hever when she returned from Europe. The Boleyn Apartment reflects this. The Great Chamber, the third area on the visitor’s trail, is equipped with replica books and musical instruments such as lutes, an instrument Anne had learnt to play in France and on which she would have whiled away many hours at Hever, entertaining guests and honing her skills. However, no contemporary inventories of the Boleyn household at Hever survive, so the curatorial team has been unable to ascertain if the artefacts and furniture featured in the Boleyn Apartment were actually used by the family. “However, we have furnished the apartment largely with original, early-16th-century furniture, and so these are items that would have been very familiar to the family,” says McCaffrey, who in 2021 discovered hidden words and names in a Book of Hours (a personal devotional text) that belonged to Anne. These suggest how the book was preserved following her execution — passed among a network of trusted connections, primarily women. Anne’s personal prayerbooks, including this Book of Hours, are now displayed in a separate room on the same floor as the new Boleyn Apartment. “Visitors will get to experience the world of Anne Boleyn and then encounter her own personal books,” McCaffrey explains.
Among the original furniture on display is an extraordinary oak cupboard with carved birds and French fleur-de-lys, located in Great Chamber. One of McCaffrey’s favourite elements is a frieze hand painted around the top of the same room, featuring royal emblems like the Tudor Rose combined with Boleyn emblems such as a falcon, “There are several surviving examples of friezes today which provided our inspiration for this popular, wealthy Tudor decoration.”
Anne’s return to England also found her a new role at the English court, as lady-in-waiting to Catherine of Aragon, Henry’s first wife. Anne immediately distinguished herself, attracting the attention of many at court. One of these was the king. During his pursuit of her, Anne often retreated to Hever. After all, absence does make the heart grow fonder. To fuel this fondness during their times apart the couple wrote letters to each other. Anne is believed to have written many of hers from the Best Bedchamber, another room now part of the Boleyn Apartment. Decked in sumptuous red and gold fabrics, this room gives an impression of the furnishings Anne might have enjoyed while waiting for Henry and Catherine’s annulment to be granted. It was also likely in this room that Anne suffered the agonies of the sweating sickness in 1528, an epidemic with high fatality rates that had swept through the land. Henry dispatched his own doctor to Hever to care for his future queen, who was lucky to survive.
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It would take another five years, much diplomatic manoeuvring, and England’s break from Rome for Anne to become queen of England. Hever became a memory while Anne enjoyed a brief period of grace before her bloody downfall in 1536. She did, however, leave an indelible mark at the Kent castle, one that visitors can now enjoy through a new lens.
The Boleyn Apartment at Hever Castle opens on June 26; hevercastle.co.uk
