Castle hunting...

Although I'm not sure it counts as castle *hunting* per se if you already know where you're heading. After some intense work, RJ decided that he wanted to check out Castle Rising (http://www.castlerising.co.uk/thecastle.html). Sounded like a day not unpacking to me, so I was all for it. So off we went this morning. When we left the house it was a beautiful sunny day in the Midlands. A little crisp, a little breezy, but generally very nice. Perfect castle hunting weather. Off we went, snacks in the car for little miss, layers of clothing just in case, and a GPS loaded with the correct (double checked) post code.

And an hour later we drove into this. It was windy, it was cold. it was hailing and raining and generally miserable. It was both exactly what we didn't want for tramping around a bunch of old rocks with a two year old and just about exactly what one expects in northern(ish) England in late October. We were almost an hour invested in the trip and only 10 minutes away by GPS, so of course we pressed on.

Ta da! A castle! Oh, wait, not so much. That's the name of the village. The castle is actually called Castle Rising Castle. Confusing? Oh well. Whatever works. When your village has been around as long as this one has, who's going to argue about a silly name? I'm still not sure which came first, the castle or the village name.

Aha! A castle! For real this time! There is it, just peeking over the earthworks. The massive earthworks. 120 feet at the highest point. Massive! Impressive! So glad I didn't have to dig that particular hole. Also glad I never had to storm this particular castle. Particularly with arrows and other nasties raining down on me. Not my idea of a fun day! I'll take intermittent hail over arrows any day!

Here I am with a very sleepy and not particularly happy Maggie at the main gate to the castle. Maggie perked up a bit once we got inside, and was giggling crazily by the time we hit the second floor. Apparently she gets as much of a kick out of these things as her parents. Excellent!

And here she is in all her glory. Built around 1138 by William d'Albini shortly after marrying King Henry I's widow. The castle later became home to Queen Isabella, mother of King Edward III, shortly after she helped murder her husband, King Edward II. After Isabella died the castle was eventually used as a hunting lodge by the Black Prince. Talk about an awesome "lodge". Must be nice to be royalty. Anyway, Prince Edward did a bunch of restorations, including turning some of the battlements into enclosed rooms. Eventually, in 1544 the castle passed to the Howard family, who still own it today. In fact, the current Lord Howard is a direct descendant of William d'Albini, still has a home in Castle Rising (when he's not sitting in the house of lords or otherwise being a lord of the realm...interesting fellow. Google him. It's an interesting read. 3 wives! Yikes!), and still flies his arms from the battlements (sadly the banner was having tangling issues and won't be fixed until Monday so we couldn't get any good pictures). All in all, the castle has had an interesting history. There's some mention of housing a mental patient in the 18th century, but I haven't tracked down any more details on that yet. Interesting, and look how pretty!

The main door. It's gorgeous! Think they'd notice it missing?

And from the other side with Maggie and I for scale. I'm not short. It's a big door.

And here we are in the basement. The original great hall was above this before the floor collapsed in the 16th century. Big basement. Lots of storage. I'm envious.

The other half of the basement. I'm standing beside the castle well. The great hall floor would have been level with the bridge/walk above me. Again with the scale. Lots and lots of storage space, Which makes sense when you consider they might have had to store enough food for a lengthy siege. Those earthworks are awesome, but they can still be surrounded.

I really like these hinges. A lot. I wonder if any of my wonderful blacksmith friends could recreate them? Hmm....

It's hard to see here, but each one of those rocks is carved with a different coat of arms. Heck, they're old enough that it's hard to see them in person. The picture does not do this justice.

As usual I'm in the kitchen. Well, the servant's door into the now-floorless great hall. At least, we think it was the servants door. It also leads to the gardrobes, which are just past the kitchen.

A random face. There are 3 of them. Added in the 14th century if memory serves.

This is the view from the "new" room added by the Black Prince where the battlements once were. Great view of the front gate. Perfect for defense. Still gray out there, but not as bad as before. Crazy wind, though.

Interesting bit about the minting of royal coins. William was apparently loyal to Stephen. In fact, he helped broker a truce between Stephen and Henry Plantagenet. Also an interesting guy. Again, google him. He was also called William d'Aubigny. Stephen was pretty interesting as well. That or I'm really just that much of a geek.

More rebellions, this time a tad later.

And then we had to go down. Carrying a toddler. For 4 flights. It was slow. Maggie thought it was great!

One of many arrow loopholes. Many, many, many of them.

The side of the keep, which is the largest in England. The low walls in the foreground are the remains of a 14th century chapel. On the other side of the keep are the remains of a much earlier Norman church that predates the keep itself by about a hundred years. It was the first parish church of Castle Rising (they think). There was also, apparently, a wooden building where the keep stands now that dates to about the same time as the Normal church. Apparently there is some speculation that it was monastic in nature. Always talk to the staff in the souvenir shop. Sometimes they know nothing. But others they are a wealth of information. I got lucky today. The woman was great!

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I found this at the base of a tree. It reads "Planted by HRH The Princess of Wales Dec. 27th, 1866". The princess in question is Alexandra of Denmark, married to Prince Albert Edward, son of Queen Victoria. Apparently random boulders are interesting here.

Then we headed into the village itself at the suggestion of the helpful shop lady. I found sheep. RJ rolled his eyes, I think. There were 4 of them. Maggie was impressed.

We also found the church, built around the same time as the keep to replace the old Norman construction inside the earthworks as the parish church. We didn't go in as it seemed rather closed up (the sign stating that it was closed was a bit of a giveaway). So we admired the outside.

I love the cross. There is one on each of the four arms extended from the center part of the church.

The little bird on the headstone seemed somehow poignant.

This is across from the old pub (which dates to some time in the 17th century). It reads "Erected by the people of Castle Rising as a memorial to the Great War 1914-1919"

The plaque above is on this street light.

It's old! Really, really old! And how incredibly cool is that?

We found this crest in a few different places. It's the Howard family crest, which makes some sort of sense since the Howard family has owned the castle and various lands around it since 1544. I wonder what it feels like to walk down the street to the pub and know that the old crest carved randomly into the fence is yours? Or do Lords of the realm (and a Baron at that!) walk to the pub?

There you have it. Our castle hunting expedition was, in fact, successful.  I promise not every post will be this picture-laden. Nor will I bore you for 3-4 years with nothing but history. Much. Okay, I might, but isn't this much  more interesting than me moaning about trying to build IKEA furniture in a house with ceilings that are too low? Tomorrow is grocery shopping. I'll spare you the details unless something interesting happens. Next weekend? Who knows. We did pass a very interesting sign stating that there was something relating to the bronze age down one of the roads we didn't take. We might just have to investigate.

Until then!