Lympne Castle has been hosting nobles and socialites since the 13th century from prime ministers to Mick Jagger and the cast of The Only Way is Essex. Now the Kent castle is in need of a new lord of the manor, for anyone willing to pay its £11 million price tag.
Originally part of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s estate, the grade I listed building encompasses a grand hall, two towers and spiral staircases, all set in 137 acres. It sits atop an escarpment on Romney Marsh, on the site of a Saxon Abbey, some 11 miles from Ashford. On a clear day, the views across the Channel stretch as far as France.
The village of Lympne was a Roman coastal fortress called Portus Lemanis. The Kentish castle was church property until the death of Archdeacon Croft in 1860, when it was sold to Major Lawes of Dover, who installed a local farmer as a tenant.
After falling into disrepair, the castle was restored and extended at the start of the 20th century by Sir Robert Lorimer for Francis John Tennant. Tennant was the brother-in-law, through his sister, Margot, of the future prime minister Herbert Henry Asquith. In 1909 Asquith was enjoying a country weekend at Lympne Castle when he was grabbed by three suffragettes as he left church on a Sunday morning. He was accosted on a golf course the same afternoon and when the Asquith party sat down to dinner that evening, the trio crept up to the castle wall and shouted through the window: “Mr Asquith, we shall go on pestering you until you give women the vote” before slinging several stones through the window.
Harry and Deidre Margary bought the castle for £30,000 in 1962. One of their sons, Aubyn de Margary, was friends with the Rolling Stones, who once dropped in on him after playing a gig near by, much to the displeasure of his father, Harry, who told them: “F*** off, it’s far too late.”
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In the late 1970s, Paul McCartney and his band, Wings, used the castle to record part of the album Back to the Egg. “Paul McCartney has been a regular visitor, but not too much recently,” said Robert Taylor, 69, who bought the castle from the Margarys in 2000.
Will Peppitt of Savills, which is handling the sale, said that in Kent “a real castle on the top of the hill, overlooking the coast, is a rare thing”.
