Carisbrooke castle is just outside of Newport on the Isle Of Wight and is owned by English Heritage. Entrance prices are £8.80 Adults, £5.20 Children. £25.20 Family (2 Adults, 3 Children) (non gift aid prices) “prices quoted are from the date of our visit please check official website for up to date pricing HERE “
Unfortunately on our visit my asthma was bad, so I was out of breath a lot of the time so I didn’t enjoy the visit as much as I would have like to. Though at the castle there is loads to explore from the great hall and museum which gives you the history of the castle over the past thousand years. Also the guard house with the spiral staircase.
The best part for me was walking along the castle wall battlements, though with my bad asthma this was a struggle to get up the steep steps , but was well worth it, The views from the wall are beautiful and does give you a great perspective of the inside the castle. You can go right to the top of one of the Norman look outs Shell Keep, though I couldn’t go all the way up, as was getting me out of breath and making me dizzy and heights and dizziness don’t mix 🙂
The Princess Beatrice garden is a nice part of the castle and is very relaxing in there, I missed going into the chapel which is just by the gardens. You can also walk the whole way around the castle in the old moat, and this really does give you a scale of this large castle.
There is the donkey centre where you can see the Carisbrooke donkeys and throughout the day there are demonstrations of the donkeys drawing water up from 16th century treadwheel well. I had a nice relaxing walk around the Bowling green and at each corner there are cannons with great views over the surrounding area. Onsite you have a tea room and gift shop. If you take a picnic there are loads of place to relax and eat.
We did enjoy our visit though because of my asthma we only spent just under an hour and half there. For a family this place would be great as the children will really enjoy the visit, though to fully enjoy the experience be prepared to do a bit of walking. You can see there is a lot of money being spent on restoration as the time of our visit they seemed to be restoring by Carey’s Mansion.
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