I would like to see as many castles as possible without missing out on London. Which ones would anyone suggest. I have six days in England.
Thanks
Mike

It's an easy train ride to Windsor Castle, which has the bonus of being in town, so you can get some souvenir shopping done if you want.

Windsor Castle is terrific and only a 30 minute train ride. Plus, the town of Windsor itself is quite charming and a great way to spend time after you've seen the castle. You can also walk across the bridge over to Eton.

Hampton Court Palace is actually in London (zone 6) and is also about a 30 minute train ride from Waterloo Station. This is a very interesting palace to see and the grounds/gardens are fabulous! I will always remember them and wish that I had one ounce of gardening ability like the British do!

Kensington Palace is in London, right in the main tourist zone (1) and you can tour certain parts of it. If I remember correctly, the bottom floor consists of displays about clothing (I enjoyed seeing many of Diana's former gowns and the Queen's hats!), but the 2nd floor is where you get to see the rooms. I just loved seeing Victoria's bedroom, along with all the other beautifully decorated rooms of the former kings and queens.

Have a great trip!

just a little further outside town there are many manor houses which are great to visit....churchhill's house in surrey, castles in kent, etc

A lot depends on how far outside London you care to get. Windsor is excellent and a fairly short train ride away.

Dover Castle is out a ways but accessible by train. Leeds and Hever are wonderful places and not terribly far out, though I'd say they're not so convenient without a car or taxi. (I drove when i visited all three.)

Also, the Tower of London is very much a castle, despite the name.

Mike, do you mean to include palaces, too, or just literally castles? The former are essentially big fancy houses and the latter are, by strict definition, fortifications.

Most of what you'll find in the London immediate area is palaces, i.e., fancy houses. If it's technically castles that you want, then a train trip to Warwick would be worthwhile, as well as Windsor and the Tower of London.

Hi Mike

The south east is particularly rich in castles as it was fortified to protect from invasion. Some of these are not easy to get to unless you have a car or go by organised tour but try: Arundel, Bodiam, Herstmonceux (castle not open to the public but grounds are\, Lewes, Pevensey, Deal & Walmer, Hever, Leeds and Rochester Castle.

I really love Blenheim Palace, the home of the Duke of Marlborough (an ancestor of Churchill). It's about an hour outside of London in the town of Woodstock. The bonus, as with Windsor, is the town of Woodstock is itself lovely & you get a sense of what the countryside is like outside London.

There is no train service into Woodstock but you can train to Oxford & bus from there to Woodstock or take one of the many coach tours offered from London. The gardens at Blenheim are also beautiful.

Following up on Anonymous, here are the definitions of castle and palace:

castle: a large fortified building or set of buildings

palace: 1 a : the official residence of a chief of state (as a monarch or a president, 2 a : a large stately house

If Mike, you are truly looking for castles, you would be horribly disappointed with Kensington Palace and even Hampton Court and Blenheim as magnificent and interesting as they are don't remotely resemble castles.

One of my favorite castle trips for a day trip from London is to Cardiff & Caerphilly in Wales. Cardiff is about a 2 hrs train trip from London, & Caerphilly is about 15 minutes from Cardiff. Caerphilly Castle is the real gem to see but as long as in the area, Cardiff Castle is worth a stop. Caerphilly has been in a number of shows on Discovery or History channels when explaing the history of the area or showing seige weapons of that era. If you take an early train, about 8am get to Cardiff about 10am, visit the castle for a couple hours. Go to Caerphilly & have lunch at the pub next to Caerphilly -- gives you a fantastic view of the castle. This is a great castle to walk around in. It is a large castle & grounds, I think the second largest, after Windsor, but Caerphilly is not inhabited. Then you can get back to London usually by 7pm -9pm. Chepstow, in Wales, is also another castle worth a look. When you go to Warwick, make sure that you do not miss the dungeon display. One part of it is just a hole in the ground, where basically some prisoners were thrown into, given some food & left there. When visiting Dover castle, don't foget to save a few minutes to view the ruins of the Roman lighthouse. Or I have taken an overnight train to Edinburgh to visit the fantastic castle there. Leave on the train about 11pm or so, arrive about 7am visit the castle & parts of the Royal Mile & leave back for London about 4pm & arrive London somewhere around 9pm.

jsmith,
Do you know of any real castles to visit in or around London?

"Real" castles in and around London would include Windsor and the Tower.

Farther out would be places like Dover and Warwick.

Visit this website for maps, photos, history, etc. for castles all over the UK:

http://www.castle-explorer.co.uk/list-eng.php

If you want a brief history and description of castles in general try this:
http://www.britainexpress.com/History/castles.htm

Have fun.

Donnae-b,

Here's a website for Rochester Castle:

http://www.castles-abbeys.co.uk/Rochester-Castle.html

Rochester is close enough to visit from London though nobody seems to mention it as a day trip. In addition to the 12th century castle, there is the second oldest cathedral in England (Canterbury was first), a Victorian High Street and a small museum. There is also a connection to Charles Dickens: a small house where he wrote as well as being the scene of Pickwick Papers and Great Expectations. It's quite compact so you can visit all these easily.

Though I haven't been, there is a dockyard established by Henry VIII a few miles out of town.

We drove from London, stopped for visits at both Rochester and Leeds Castle and still managed to get to our BnB near Canterbury without rushing.

Hi Mike
Have a look at the National Trust website - www.nationaltrust.org.uk for some fantastic days out. Some of the properties are castles, others mansions and many are close to London.

When you say castle do you mean more a stately home/royal residence such as Windsor Castle or more of a medieval fortress?

Hi Kingdom

We are looking for more medieval type fortresses (castles)

Thank you to all for your help.

Does anyone know where we could see the more than one castle in a day trip.

For a lot of castles close together relatively near London, your best bet would be eastern Kent. Dover, Deal and Walmer castles are within a few miles of each other. Dover is a huge castle with developments from Roman time all the way up to WWII. Deal is a great small castle where you can explore all the tunnels. And Walmer is a castle - moat and all - that was converted to a very lovely "stately home" with wonderful gardens. The moat was converted to a beautiful sunken Garden. Then a few miles west you will find Bodiam Castel - which still has its moat and is awesome.

These 4 castles would give you a good overview or several castle designs - but you would need a car to get to all of them. You could take the train to Dover and then rent a car there for the day.

Places like Scotland and Wales have a LOT of castles but are too far from London to fit in your plans.