Hey everyone – welcome back to our latest blog post from part of our UK Walking tour series that we have been posting over on our YouTube channel. Now that the country is starting to lift lockdown slowly and safely we travelled to Betchworth Park Golf course, not for a spot of golf this time but to visit the hidden ruined remains of a medieval fortified house that is nestled up the high hills and hidden amongst the forest woodlands overlooking the river mole.

The castle is surrounded by the golf course, but there is access to the ruins from the gold club entrance on the A25 if you follow the sign posts and you can follow the path up the steep hills on the deep dene trail in this area – it also overlooks a lovely fishing lake below and if you look further in the distance you’ll see Betchwork quarry on the hills.

So more about this hidden ruin, Originally an 11th century earthwork fortress,  founded and constructed by a Richard fiz gilbert and strategically placed overlooking the river mole, it is evidence that it once held an iron age hill fort. It was turned into a stone castle in 1379 before being rebuilt in 1448 where the Brown family lived for over 250 years. It was developed throughout the centuries and was finally made redundant in the 1830s, to which the owner demolished parts of the castle for the building materials and all that is left is what we see in a picturesque overgrown folly.

We had the chance at some urban exploration, as the castle remains closed apart from tours, but we found a way into the ruins without harming or moving anything and grabbed some footage to share with you – again if you follow over to our channel we have a visual of the inside of this gem.

The castle itself is actually much bigger whilst you are roaming it, it looks quite small from the front but as you can see there are different parts of the building still intact – You can actually still see some of the soot marks on the chimney if you look up closely enough.  Other parts of the castle that we were able to see briefly was the inside underground cellars of the castle.

 Its really interesting to see this nowadays as usually they are blocked off but it’s great to wander in and around to see just how big it was. You can also see weathered bricks and the fireplaces that paint a great aesthetic for the ruins. If you are up for exploring for yourself, wear the right footwear and be careful as the site can be slippy with uneven ground.

We really hope you enjoyed reading about our visit to Betchworth Castle ruins, and if you get a chance to come here you should make it part of your journey when visiting the surrey area, perhaps if you are visiting the near by Guildford Cathedral or the Chilworth Gunpowder Mills which is coming up in our next blog.

We are looking to making more content via our Instagram and on our YouTube channel, below you can follow us on our social media and see what we are upto.

Till next time 🙂