The word castle evokes tall thick stone walls, crenellations, ideally a moat, a portcullis and murder holes.

So I was naughty when I sprung a mystery castle on friends for a day out. Where I actually took them is Belvoir Castle. For five hundred years the site did have a proper medieval fortification, although it kept needing to be rebuilt; the Earls of Rutland don’t have a great history in looking after their property.

The fourth castle, itself burned down and rebuilt, is just a stately home. A very stately one, with views that thoroughly justify the name.

Sadly some idiot tried selling photographs of the interior online, leading the current Duke to ban visitors from using their cameras inside what remains his home. The lady on reception confirmed that I could write to him to request permission but I was happy to just wander around and admire what is a very impressive house.

The entrance fee is a tad steep if you just visit the house but there are extensive gardens too. They’re laid out on hills that are too steep for my knees but I did find some flowers in the rose garden that were a remarkable deep red. My post-processing skills are inadequate to truly capture it 🙁

I’ll never visit again by myself but as a lazy Sunday destination for visitors (especially ones that like visiting ancient estates) it works well. There’s a nice drive there through the countryside and we stopped in Bingham on the way home for a light lunch.

However, highlight of the day was one my visitors heard, but sadly missed. The cellars of the house had speakers providing atmospheric sound alongside the exhibits (the railway for delivering coal, the in-house fire service, the large beer cellar) which annoyed the hell out of me, so I wandered out into the garden.

Some sounds you can’t fail to recognise. So when I heard the throaty roar of four Merlins I did the only thing possible: I looked up.

This is where I went wrong. I should have looked across. The aircraft came from my right, barely visible through the trees, not much higher than me, a few hundred metres away over the valley below me. I got to watch as it passed behind a gap that let me see it clearly, barely above the horizon, then it disappeared behind more trees, the sound faded and it flew elsewhere. My friends emerged, asked what the noise was, and I made them jealous.