{"id":218201,"date":"2026-05-03T11:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T11:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/218201\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T11:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T11:31:10","slug":"hever-castle-jousting-returns-for-40th-anniversary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/218201\/","title":{"rendered":"Hever Castle jousting returns for 40th anniversary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Hever Castle&#8217;s popular jousting returns this summer for its 40th anniversary season, this year with a new theme: Battle of the Queens.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Taking place on selected weekends in July and August, the long-running jousting tournaments by the Knights of Royal England will feature stunt riding, choreographed medieval combat and<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">To mark the 40th anniversary, the Battle of the Queens theme was added, a light-hearted story inspired by two of the castle&#8217;s most famous Tudor connections: Anne Boleyn and Anne of Cleves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Duncan Leslie, CEO of Hever Castle, said: &#8220;Reaching 40 years of jousting is a fantastic milestone.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">He said: &#8220;The Battle of the Queens theme adds a fun, creative layer to the experience, while still keeping the authenticity and quality of the historical performance at its core.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">There will also be newly redesigned heraldic livery &#8211; the colourful costumes and horse decorations used in the arena.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The last time a new costume was introduced at Hever Castle was in 2012, when Sir Sam of Hever was first presented in his own colours.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Over the select weekends, visitors will be able to watch the jousts in the main arena or explore the castle&#8217;s summer gardens and historic grounds.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Follow BBC Kent on <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/BBCinKent\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Facebook;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Facebook<\/a>, on <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BBCRadioKent\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:X;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">X<\/a>, and on <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bbcinkent\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:Instagram;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Instagram<\/a>. Send your story ideas to <a data-yga=\"{\" ylinkelement=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/ca.style.yahoo.com\/mailto:southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">southeasttoday@bbc.co.uk<\/a> or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250.<\/p>\n<p>Related storiesRelated internet links<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hever Castle&#8217;s popular jousting returns this summer for its 40th anniversary season, this year with a new theme:&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[67761,86039,86040,86037,86038,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-218201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-40th-anniversary","tag-anne-boleyn","tag-battle-of-the-queens","tag-hever-castle","tag-jousting-tournaments","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}