The most evocative ruin in England - an almost complete shell, with shadowed corridors, grand sweeps of stone staircases, guarderobes, a fireplace eerily suspended in the wall of a collapsed Great Hall, a chapel alter, and an exquisite, intact white chamber. This was the prison of the She-Wolf of France, Isabella, confined by her son for conspiring to murder her husband, Edward II. Let your children pelt up and down the vast surrounding earthwork, and dart past the grooves where the old portcullis fell.

Castle Rising, Kings Lynn, Norfolk, PE31 6AH
+44(0)1553 631330
www.castlerising.co.uk/
Google map: bit.ly/eTfLjT

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At Holkham in Norfolk you get two film locations for the price of one: Gwyneth Paltrow walked along the exhilarating expanse of the beach here at the end of ‘Shakespeare in Love,’ while Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes were among the cast of ‘The Duchess,’ which used Holkham Hall for interiors.

Ancestral seat of the Earls of Leicester, the Coke family has lived in Holkham since the 1750’s. It is still very much a family home: when I was there the present day Viscount’s wife and children were packing a silver caravan for their summer holiday. Visitors are encouraged to “walk on the carpets and get close to the ancient statues and treasures.”

The Hall is open for visitors from June to September. There is a café, shop and museum. A special exhibition shows costumes worn in “The Duchess.” The deer park is free and open every day except Christmas Day – visitors can walk around the 3000 acre grounds and are certain to see some of the 800 fallow deer. By the time we tore ourselves away it was early evening, just time to walk down Lady Anne’s Drive to the nature reserve and watch kite flyers on the beach until sunset. To spend more time in this designated area of outstanding beauty, stay in a lodge hideaway set in a folly on Holkham estate.

www.holkham.co.uk

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