Peckforton Castle

Last June, Forrest and I decided to take a month-long vacation. During that time, we went on a cruise (which I just finished blogging about!) and decided to take a leisurely road trip to Scotland, specifically, the western coast and the Isle of Skye. This was our third (or maybe fourth?) time driving up to the highlands, and I have to tell you, it never gets old. Scotland is maybe my favorite place in the entire world. The people are so nice and the cities are so beautiful and don't even get me started on the scenery. We didn't actually visit any big cities this trip (I missed you, Edinburgh!); it was strictly a let's go see nature kind of expedition. But the scenery. I have many, many pictures of the scenery on this trip, don't worry. But, I digress.

This post isn't even really about Scotland. It's about a castle in the middle part of England.

Seeing as we lived a fairly long distance from Scotland (and trust me, we have done the drive all in one day; it is loooong), we decided to break the trip up so that we could stop earlier in the day and have time to relax and unwind. And obviously, there were things we wanted to see along the way.

Peckforton Castle is located in Cheshire and was a convenient first stop on our journey from Suffolk to the Isle of Skye. I just happened to find a deal online that included our meals + a couples massage. I was sold. They also had segways and archery and other cool and fun things. Alas, we were only in residence long enough to partake of our massages the next morning and then we were on our merry way. It was very relaxing though.

The castle was built in 1844 as a country home for the Tollemache family who lived there until 1939 when it was turned into a haven for disabled children during the war. Now the castle is a hotel (obviously) and a dandy hotel it is.

There's a peacock that roams the grounds. I was a little scared of him to be honest.

Hedwig! You're alive!

We really enjoyed the giant room key, never ending ceilings, and our adorable, tiny window seat.

It felt like we had the place to ourselves most of the time we were there. We wandered in and out of the various banquet rooms and up and down the winding staircases. 

It turns out that castles are really fun places to stay.