INTRODUCTION TO CASTLES

|control of the castle. ||The castle came into the possession of Edward I (1278) . He rebuilt |

|much of the castle as it stood at the beginning of his reign, and |

|enlarged it, providing an outer stone curtain round the edge of the |

|larger island, with cylindrical open-backed flanking towers and a |

|square-plan water-gate on the south-east. The gatehouse at the |

|south-west, a single tower pierced by an arched passage was improved.|

|Later on, King Edward, the Confessor granted the manor to the |

|powerful house of Godwin. |

|Henry VIII, the most famous of all the owners of Leeds Castles, |

|expended large sums in enlarging and beautifying the whole range of |

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|buildings. At the same time, he carefully retained the defenses of |

|the castle for he often had cause to fear invasion from either France|

|or the Spanish . The king entrusted the work of alteration to his |

|great friend Sir Henry Guidford. |

|Leeds has been constantly inhabited and rebuilt since then. Most of |

|the castle today is the result of the nineteenth-century |

|reconstruction and addition. In 1926 Leeds was bought by the Hon. |

|Mrs. Wilson-Filmer, known as Lady Baillie. Immediately she began the |

|restoration of the castle that took her over 30 years to leave it as |

|it stands today. |

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