HEVER.- Hever Castle, the childhood home of Anne Boleyn – arguably the most beguiling and famous of Henry VIII’s six wives - will unveil the Boleyn Apartment on the first floor of the castle on 25 March 2024 to give visitors a truly unique and immersive experience of Tudor history.

The apartment, the only surviving suite of rooms in the world that the Boleyn family definitely occupied, are being painstakingly re-interpreted with genuine Tudor artefacts, and furnishings to create an atmosphere so authentic, that it would feel very much familiar to Anne and her family, should they walk into them today.

What makes Hever’s project unique, is the fact that rooms in other houses lived in by the Boleyns, in the UK and Europe, have either been destroyed or modified beyond their recognition. For example, Rochford Hall in Essex, once owned by Anne’s father Sir Thomas Boleyn, is now a golf club.

At Hever Castle visitors will have the sense that they are stepping back in time as they retrace the footsteps of the Boleyns.

Visitors entering the Castle will continue to be able to learn about William Waldorf Astor’s vision on the ground floor. Once the richest man in America, he bought the Castle in 1903 with a view to making it a showpiece house, in which to entertain and show off his art collection. Astor was fascinated by the Tudors and drew inspiration from other houses of the era, such as Hampton Court Palace. So much so, that he insisted that all the finishes be done using 16th Century style tools such as adzes (a flat faced axe) rather than modern (Edwardian) planes and saws.

The influence of Anne, her siblings Mary and George, and parents Thomas and Elizabeth will soon become apparent as you enter the Parlour (previously the Morning Room), before climbing the spiral staircase to the Children’s Bedchamber (formerly Anne Boleyn’s Bedroom), passing through to the Great Chamber (formerly the Book of Hours Room) and into the Best Bedchamber (formerly the Queens’ Chamber).

With the use of tapestries, friezes, genuine 16th century English oak furniture, coats of arms and the associated traditional smells of all the natural fixtures and fittings will bring alive this most fascinating time in our history and completely immerse you in what it was like to live in a grand house almost 500 years ago.

The Children’s Bedchamber will show what life was like for Anne Boleyn as a child at Hever Castle and letters and a writing desk will be in the Best Bedchamber, the location where it is thought Anne would have written to Henry VIII during their courtship. It is believed that she spent a great deal of time at Hever between 1505 and 1513, before being sent to the court of Margaret of Austria in Mechelen, Flanders to continue her formal education.

The Great Chamber will demonstrate the multi-functional purpose of rooms such as this with artefacts such as lutes, poetry, replica books and French influences, which highlight that the Boleyns were a family at the forefront of the cultural Renaissance in Europe. Anne’s father was a diplomat, noted for his considerable charm.

The re-interpretation of these rooms is a major undertaking, having been planned and researched for over a year by Hever Castle’s Curatorial team, with advice from historian, Dr David Starkey. The installation process will begin in the New Year and continue through to March 2024. While this goes on visitors will be taken on a different route through the castle, with some room closures during February and March 2024. However, they will also have the rare opportunity to join behind-the scenes-tours of the work in progress.

The re-interpretation will also see items from Hever Castle’s permanent collection relocated, such as the Book of Hours prayer books signed by Anne Boleyn, which will be displayed to visitors elsewhere in the Castle.

Launching this exciting, landmark project Castle Historian Kate McCaffrey says: “We are thrilled to announce our plans for the Boleyn Apartment. We wanted to create an immersive series of rooms that lets the visitor step back in time to the world of Anne Boleyn and her family – Hever’s most famous inhabitants. We have an incredibly rare, unique opportunity to use these rooms as they would have been used and sell them as the only place in the world that you can go to enjoy a real, authentic Boleyn experience.”

One of the family members who owns Hever Castle, Richard Guthrie said: “It’s a tremendously exciting project. Following the commission of a detailed study of the historical physical characteristics of the Castle, and in consultation with arguably one of the most eminent Tudor experts of our age, our in house team of historians have designed a new exhibition, which we are confident will parallel very closely the way particular rooms would have both looked and been lived in during the occupation of Anne Boleyn and her family. It will provide a quite unique new experience for all visitors to the castle.”