This was for the Landmark Trust, a charity whose raison d'être was to acquire and renovate old buildings that were in some way exceptional or distinctive - castles, manors, follies, that sort of thing - and then hire them out to holiday makers.
By this time I'd already developed a fair amount of longing for a castle of my very own (no sign of it happening just yet, sadly), and spent several weekends stopping over in various ones, so the idea of having the full run of a place like that for an entire week was irresistible. I wrote off to the Trust, got their catalogue, roped in a bunch of like-minded Castleophiles and booked a little place called Clytha Castle for a week in July.
Clytha was everything we'd hoped for, and led on to us immediately booking a different Landmark venue for the next year...and these trips are still carrying on the present day. Naturally (?) enough the majority of people that went on this holiday were also members of the 572 crowd, and while the cast list has varied a bit from year to year this is generally known as the "572 Annual Holiday".
Enough natter, let's look at the various venues themselves:
| 1993: Clytha Castle | |
| 1994: Monkton Old Hall | |
| 1995: Gurney Manor |
| 1996: Woodsford Castle | |
| 1997: Morpeth Castle | |
| 1998: Wortham Manor | |
| 1999: Gurney Manor (again) |
| 2000: Ascog House |
| 2001: Gargunnock House |