I used to live near there too and have visited a few times. Seen some open air Shakespearre performed there. t's a good location for that.

Here's a comment I received on Facebook from Pilchard (Is she still a member here?)

"This castle is only up the road from us and is an amazing location. Definitely needs to be seen. Some years ago, we made a visit there with my parents and their dog Gully. Gully worshipped my Dad and was very obediant. But inside the castle, we came across a small ante-room (not sure how else to describe it) and we all one by one entered this small room to have a nosy. It was so small, with a very low entrance, only 2 people at a time could go in & it would necessitate ducking low to enter. I went in first then, Dad followed, pulling Gully (who was on a lead) on behind him.

However Gully slammed the brakes on....he dug his claws into the ground, his eyes went wild and tried to run away."

Dad couldn't understand what was up with Gully and tried to force him in but Gully was having none of it, family were even pushing Gully's bum from the outside of the ante-room. Gully became really distressed so Dad stopped trying to force him and left the ante-room. His behaviour was totally out of character; he NEVER disobeyed my Dad but he just wasn't willing to go in that room. Something we couldn't see frightened him. It was at that point that I looked around the ante-room and decided that I didn't care to stay in there either and swiftly exited!"

Visited this castle a few years back on a scorching hot day. Took loads of photos but forgot to compensate for the bright sunshine and many were well over-exposed. Maybe I should have heeded the chap ahead of us who kept stopping and blocking the way as he set up his tripod, attached the camera and fiddled around for ages before taking a single shot at each location. He never looked to see if he was impeding anyone before starting the process and on occasion had quite a fuming queue behind him but maybe he got some good pictures too.