Day four of our holiday involved a drive partially home for the next stage of our holiday in Coventry. We didn’t want to lose an entire day to travelling, so we decided to pick a National Trust property on our way and stop off for a look around. We picked Castle Drogo in Devon completely at random, and it was quite an interesting choice to make.

Castle Drogo was the last castle to be built in the UK and it was built will full electricity. But despite only being finished less than 100 years ago, the roof has never been watertight and there is a lot of water damage.

We didn’t know this until we got there, and neither did we know that they are currently in the process of a multi-million pound restoration of the castle, which involves taking it to pieces and rebuilding it again. Most of the castle is covered in a big plastic sheeting covered scaffolding structure to keep the weather out, so you couldn’t see what it was supposed to look like.

One condition of the funding that they received for the restoration was that the castle had to remain open throughout. None of the regular exhibits are on show as the castle is in such disarray, so each room in the house which remains open contains a different theme, for example the ‘Room of Time Passing’, which was storing every clock from the house.

It was fascinating to see how the restoration is completed, and I’d love to go back there once it’s finished to see the castle in it’s true glory!

After we’d walked around the castle and the gardens, we stopped for a quick Devon cream tea, during which we were joined by a very friendly little bird who just wanted a few crumbs!