Lullingstone Castle and the World Garden are located in Kent, within the civil parish of Eynsford, England. The historic manor house and gatehouse date to 1497, and the estate has belonged to the Hart Dyke family for over twenty generations. Set within 120 acres, the house overlooks a 15-acre lake and has welcomed notable visitors including King Henry VIII and Queen Anne. The grounds feature Queen Anne’s Bathhouse beside the River Darent, an 18th-century ice house, and the nearby 14th-century Church of St Botolph. Lullingstone once operated as a silk farm, producing silk for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation robes, and was requisitioned by the British Army during World War II, when a dummy airfield was constructed on the estate. Lawn tennis was played here as early as the 1870s, around the time the modern rules were established. In 2000, current owner Tom Hart Dyke created the World Garden, cultivating plants from around the world following his survival of a nine-month kidnapping in Panama, later documented for BBC2.
