Lullingstone Castle

Save Lullingstone Castle (Tuesday nights on BBC2)  tells the story of local Kent man, Tom Hart Dyke’s, struggle to create something positive from his nightmare kidnap ordeal, in order to benefit the ailing fortunes of his family’s ancestral home.

Tom  Hart Dyke, heir to Lullingstone Castle in Eynsford, was kidnapped in  2000 while trekking through ‘The Darien Gap’ in Panama, a dangerous place abandoned by all to warring guerrilla factions.  Tom was held hostage for nine months with his travelling companion Paul Winder.

Save Lullingstone Castle, the story of Tom's plans to revive his family’s fortunes and to save the ancestral home which has been in their family for 19 generations, has its roots in the fetid heat of the jungle. 

Tom Hart Dyke in his garden.

Tom says "The idea for the World ‘map’ garden as a tourist attraction for Lullingstone,  was born out of my need to distract myself from the terrible prospect of execution in the jungle."

After his release from captivity in December 2000, KEO films came knocking on the Castle gates asking to film Tom's garden idea.   And so, accompanied by a film crew, Tom began the next faze of his incredible journey.

The World Garden at Lullingstone Castle

Save Lullingstone Castle follows the ups and downs of creating Tom's garden dream - arguments with neighbours over boundary lines and fences,  the thorny issue of sponsorship, relationships with the bank and  the logistics of putting a dream into action have struck a familiar chord with viewers keen to know whether or not Tom gets his garden project off the ground.

One of the first people to start working alongside Tom on the project was his near neighbour Adam S Bailey, a garden designer based  just down the lane from Lullingstone Castle. 

Adam S Bailey said "working with Tom was enormous fun and making Tom's dream a reality was an exciting challenge made all the more interesting by the presence of the film crew.  The project is unique and it was an interesting experience having the BBC film every part of the design process – from the drawing board, through construction,  opening".

Tom being filmed by BBC South East Today

Adam said "the response to the programme and Tom's exciting project has been very interesting.  We’ve received calls and queries from around the world.  We were even filmed by Korean TV".

The garden is now open to the public and visitor numbers through April have exceeded Tom’s wildest dreams.  He said  "the first night the programme went out, our website counter crashed because we had so many visitors.  The following weekend at the Castle  we had a great response from visitors who’d travelled down to Lullingstone to see the Castle and grounds for themselves.’