WILD CAMPING IN A RUINED CASTLE | THURNHAM KENT

I have been planning this wild camp for the last few months and already visited the site once before to assess it's potential for a wild camp with Candice. We returned to the remains of Thurnham Castle, high up on a steep hillside overlooking the village of Thurnham, near Maidstone in Kent, for this ambitious camp.

The weather was forecast as some 40mph winds and some rainy showers from Storm Hannah. We experienced some of these earlier in the day and had a few spells of light rain during the night, but it was mostly calm. We took our Vango Nevis 200 tent to ensure a comfortable and dry nights sleep.

After a trip to two local pubs, we returned to the castle hill and headed up past the remains of the stone curtain walls and up onto the top of the huge motte where a keep may once have stood and set the tent up.

We had hot drinks, a cider and lots of food including another ration pack before settling down for the night to sleep. We awoke at 6am the following morning to a cloudy sky with little sunshine, but the views were still spectacular. After breakfast and a speedy breaking of camp, we headed down to explore the rest of the castle site, little remains sadly, before heading home.

It has been a goal of mine for a long time to wild camp on the site of a ruined castle, and now I've finally done it! Next castle wild camp will be Hadleigh Castle near the Thames Estuary in Essex!

Folk Round by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...)
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