At “ The Sign of the Gate ” 
THE MANOR HOUSE, HOLLINGBOURNE 
From a Sketch by the Author 
have been when Queen Isabella came to de¬ 
mand admission to her castle close by. The 
present inn could hardly have been standing 
then; but no doubt thirsty men-at-arms were 
able to satisfy their craving for drink at a 
house of entertainment on the spot where 
the “ Gate ” now stands. 
Come with me for a stroll through the ad¬ 
jacent park, and see the castle itself. It will 
add point to the story I have to tell. King 
Edward the Second gave Leeds Castle to 
Queen Isabella, but afterwards thoughtlessly 
exchanged it with Lord Bartholomew de 
Badlesmere for another great house in Shrop¬ 
shire more to his liking. Not 
to be done out of what she 
considered her just right, the 
Queen went on a pretended 
pilgrimage to Canterbury, but 
turned aside on the way to seek 
admission to her home. Wal¬ 
ter Colepeper, however, the 
doughty castellan, said that 
none should enter without per¬ 
mission from his master, then 
warring with the barons against 
the King’s favorite. Queen 
Isabella retired in wrath, but 
persuaded King Edward to 
send an army to reduce the 
castle to submission. This 
was successfully accomplished, 
after a siege, in the year 1321, 
when Colepeper was hanged 
forthwith. His master Badlesmere was short¬ 
ly after taken prisoner at Canterbury and be¬ 
headed as a traitor, his head being fixed over 
the borough gate in that city. 
The ten minutes we have been walking 
and talking has brought us right up to the 
castle moat, and a fine stretch of water it is, 
covering fifteen acres in all. The walls of 
the castle rise from two islands in the middle. 
These are connected by a bridge supported 
on two pointed arches, which have taken the 
place of the drawbridge of an earlier time. A 
second drawbridge spanned the moat from the 
large island to the park. Should it be sundown, 
curfew will be heard announcing the end of the 
day from the old tower above; thus keeping 
up an ancient custom according well with the 
hoary appearance of the time-scarred pile. 
The oldest portion of the building is to 
the right of my sketch. Here in the ninth 
century was the Saxon keep, merely a con¬ 
ical mound surrounded by a deep ditch. 
Then of course came the Normans, and in 
the twelfth century Robert Crevecoeur built 
the vaulted cellar, the oldest remaining piece 
of masonry in the castle. The tower part 
of the keep, as it now stands, and the chapel, 
with its windows of geometrical tracery, be¬ 
long to the Early English style, and date 
from about 1280. 1'he upper part of the old 
castle is of the period of Henry the Eighth. 
In the seventeenth century, again, an Eliz¬ 
abethan mansion was erected at the north 
THE PARK GATE INN, FROM THE ROAD 
294 
