Dover

If Leeds Castle is a chaise lounge, Dover Castle is an over-stuffed arm chair with hidden cup holders. Old, large-scale and well-worn, Dover Castle is full of surprises.

According to English Heritage, "No fortress in England boasts a longer history than Dover Castle." That's reinforced by the large Roman lighthouse still standing next to a Norman church which retains many of its original features. According to TomTom, we even parked in the "Roman Ditch" inside the fortress.




Situated high above the Dover harbor and on a stretch of land closest to France, Dover Castle has always been in a very strategic position. Carlisle Castle was all about defense (click on this link for the archived post), but Dover takes it to the extreme. I won't try to capture all of the defensive features, but just imagine a series of earthwork defenses, deep ditches, drawbridges, soaring walls, magazines, and a whole network of tunnels built to defend it all.





Check out that gun...

No matter how you approach this hilltop fort, it's intimidating and steep. You'd have to be pretty fit to storm this baby.




It also has the biggest keep I think I've seen, including the Tower of London.








Jeff enjoying the medieval facilities in the guarderobe. Random fact we learned—Henry VIII's entourage of 800, like other royal courts, often moved between castles out of necessity. That is, the stench became unbearable to the royal nostrils.


The defenses span some mighty big wars including the Napoleonic Wars, WWII, and the Cold War. Many strategies during these times involved digging underground tunnels into the chalk cliffs for extra barracks, defense, hospitals, communication, etc. Dover Castle is especially well known for the secret WWII wartime tunnels that you can now tour. There are 5 levels and only stopped digging when they got close to the water table. We were able to see two or so on the tour and they're set up as they were left in WWII—telephone exchanges, artillery-plotting rooms, and operating suites. I think the thing that made the biggest impact on me were the working conditions in the tunnels. Because of security issues, female civilian telephone operators would do 12 hour shifts locked in a dank, moldy hole. Ventilation wasn't great and most people smoked. On top of that, it was cold in the winter and hot in the summer with moisture condensing on the ceiling and raining down. Besides being uncomfortable, it caused frequent shorts in the electronics. Lung diseases and infections were common. The tour was really informative and I highly recommend it.

Older medieval tunnel complex (can't take pictures of the WWII stuff).


Artillery, accessed by tunnels, covers an outer ditch.


Overall, the castle was very impressive... and beautiful (sun and sea help). There's a LOT to see and explore. We spent more time at this castle than any other.

When we were finally done, we went next door to the White Cliffs of Dover to see them in person. It was amazing—it gets a "must see" in my book. Dramatic shear cliffs glowing in the sun, beautiful rolling grassland, great views, and even a steep descent to an abandoned lookout and rocky beach. I was surprised that the beach was mostly black rocks and was an interesting contrast to the white cliffs.








From here, you can even see the cliffs of the French coast off in the distance. Just to remind you of the proximity, you can also pick up French radio stations when driving around Dover. When you're in an airplane, you can actually see both shores at the same time as you fly over the Channel. And, yes, the chalky cliffs really are chalky—Pat used a piece to write "France" on his hand.


France is really there, I promise—it's just barely visible below the cloud line.

Leeds Castle

Saturday my sister, Lauren, and her husband, Jeff, flew into southern England. We went down south to meet up with them and stayed two nights at their timeshare in Kent. Partly to keep them awake on Saturday, and mostly because we wanted to see it, we toured Leeds Castle.

Not to be confused with the city Leeds, where Pat works in West Yorkshire, Leeds Castle is about 250 miles away. The name is just a coincidence. Noted in the Domesday Book, Leeds Castle is over 1,000 years old and started off as a Norman fortification, has been home to 6 medieval Queens, home to Henry VIII, and was more recently owned by half-American Lady Baillie who had an oil inheritance and a bird fetish.

Known as the "Queen's Castle" and "The loveliest castle in the world" (according to Lord Conway), this castle is very different from any we've visited because of its beautiful and dramatic surroundings. It is definitely the most romantic and idyllic—I think I caught a glimpse of a knight on a white horse disappearing behind the crest of a hill.

You approach the castle through the "Duckery" where exotic birds like black swans, white peacocks, and regular old peacocks mingle with the likes of Canadian geese and other birds I can't identify. Lady Baillie was a bird aficionado who collected rare species and even incorporated bird motifs into her interior decor. Today, the site houses internationally renowned aviaries and as you walk around the house you are aware of the birds squawking as they happily paddle in the lake.






You are then guided through beautifully landscaped grounds with winding canals and weeping willows as you approach the castle itself, gracefully perched on two small islands in a lake.




I would have assumed that the grounds were a romantic creation of Lady Baillie, but according to information I found on the web, the parkland "...dates from the early-middle ages, and was designed to enhance the architecture and status of the royal castle at its core." Edward I is credited with damming and controlling the River Len to create the lake, building a unique three-pronged Barbican with three drawbridges, gateways, and portcullises. He also built outer walls and a D-shaped Keep on the smallest island, known then and now as the Gloriette. All of this is said to have been influenced by "...the late 13th century Norman and Spanish Islamic influences associated with Edward I and his wife, Eleanor of Castile." However, after much renovation, the majority of the present building dates to the 19th and 20th centuries.




Inside the castle, there are some rooms designed to reflect the medieval Queens who called this home. Check out the glamorous bathtub below.


Henry VIII's dining room.


There are also many rooms reflecting Lady Baillie's French-inspired decor.




This Castle is still in use today and is available for conferences, weddings, etc. Having between 20 and 30 bedrooms for visitors, there's plenty of room for a sleepover.

the Castle Museum & Clifford's Tower

On one not-so-fine British day, we went to the so-called Castle Museum in York. According to its website, "York Castle Museum is one of Britain's leading museums of everyday life. It shows how people used to live by displaying thousands of household objects and by recreating rooms, shops, streets—and even prison cells." The buildings themselves are two former 18th century prisons. The only reason for the name "Castle Museum" is that the York castle complex once stood there. There are some interesting things, but I don't know that it's worth paying for unless you're bored.


You can see the evolution of early vacuums... Did you know the first "vacuum cleaner" was so large and heavy, it was pulled by horses to your house on a cart? How did that work? You throw hoses through your open windows. I doubt it was a weekly event.

You can see the evolution of toilets... Did you know that one of the original concepts for an indoor toilet was dry and composting? You still "flushed," but instead of water coming down, some dry dirt was dumped over the goods. They say it worked well in that it didn't smell. The drawbacks spelling its failure were 1) you need a yard with space big enough to dig out a substantial amount of dirt 2) you need find a way to dry the dirt out 3) you need to haul that fertilized dirt back out to the yard.

You can also check out Dick Turpin's old prison cell. Who? Well, he's a notorious 18th century highwayman who terrorized a lot of the country, but finally ended up being imprisoned and hung in York.

You can see some scary early childbirth instruments next to the evolution of a lucrative mourning clothes industry (probably one in the same back then). All in all it's an interesting, but discombobulated presentation of all kinds of information from all sorts of non-chronological, loosely connected time periods.

Outside, in the courtyard of the old prison buildings and Courthouse (which is still used today) is a solitary tree where the gallows used to stand. Just beyond it is Clifford's Tower, the only remaining piece of York's castle.


Check out the model to see the entire complex as it once stood—the moat supplied by the river Foss.


Clifford's Tower was part of a motte and bailey castle built by William the Conqueror (aka William the Bastard) in 1068 to express Norman superiority in the North. The original version of the tower (or keep) was a pile of ground (motte) with wooden ramparts on top. Well, it pissed people off and they burnt it down within the year. After squashing their will to live, Will rebuilt the wood tower, along with another one on top of a motte nearby.


In 1190, the tower's history took a tragic turn. I've heard different versions of the story, but whether influenced by the crusades or by debt the citizen's didn't want to repay, the city turned on its Jewish population. About 150 Jews fled to the tower and barricaded themselves from the mob. When they wouldn't let castle officials inside because of fear, the city decided something had to be done and a mob ensued. The Jews decided to take their own lives rather than surrender to the mob and set the place on fire, killing everyone. According to Wikipedia, "The king's Chancellor dismissed the sheriff and constable for failing to prevent the massacre and imposed a heavy fine on York's citizens. However, the ringleaders had fled and could not be brought to justice." From what I've heard, the city itself has only recently admitted responsibility and made an official apology. The daffodils on the motte were planted in memory of those who died there.

In 1244, Henry III had the current 2 story stone tower constructed, complete with chapel, fireplaces, and latrines. It's said to be the only quatrefoil (4-lobed) plan in England and is thought to have been inspired by a French castle. Built to house the royalty, it spent most of its time acting as a treasury. It's debatable how it gained its current name—it was either named for Roger de Clifford, who was hung there in 1322, or Henry Clifford, the last Earl of Cumberland, who was the last to garrison the castle and city before they fell in 1644 to the Parliamentarians in the English Civil War.






Today it has a decent view of the city and some interesting features. It also has an unfortunate location, surrounded mostly by parking lots (the city is trying to rectify that with a Cincinnati Banks-like plan that's stalled in the planning process). I find it an ironic tower since it was only ever damaged or destroyed was by its own people, not invaders.

Happy Birthday DAD!!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Greetings from Bolsover Castle, part of the Cavendish estate and home of the million pound party for royalty back in the day when you could buy your way into being granted a title. This guy got named a Duke and then rather shortly after exiled as the parlimentarians had their way with the monarchy.

Carlisle Castle & Scotland*

Carlisle Castle is a massive defensive fortress that's seen a lot of action in the last 900 years. Built on the site of a Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall, the first version was built in 1092 of earth and timber. Over the years it's been added onto, enclosed by walls, moats, you name it. The outer castle walls were extended to enclose the city, battlements were built, the list goes on. Even the churches and homes inside the walled city were built defensively since the area had been attacked so many times. Many people decided starving the castle guard out was a better option than a full-on attack since...

First you had to get over the city walls.


Then across a wide open space, moat, and through the outer bailey walls.






Then across another exposed area, another moat with a half moon "shot-deflecting" artillery battlement where you could be picked off by handguns as you crossed the parade grounds (added in 1540 by Henry VIII when he feared attack from the Pope after tearing apart the monasteries), and through the walls of the inner bailey.




Then you could attempt to storm the keep through some mighty massive walls.




Built on the hotly contested west side of the English-Scottish border, the castle's been occupied by, under siege, or the prison of numerous people including the Romans, Mary Queen of Scots and her entourage, Border Reiver (aka raider) Kinmont Willie Armstrong, the Royalists & Parliamentarians in the Civil War, and Bonnie Prince Charles & the Jacobites to name a few. The "dungeon" in the keep (aka wine cellar in more peaceful times) holds the famous licking stones where Jacobite prisoners, desperate for water, licked the sandstone smooth in the corners to extract any possible moisture. That makes you look at water damage in a whole new way. The castle also has some of the finest ancient graffiti I've ever seen in the keep. There's some debate on whether it was carved by prisoners or bored soldiers under siege, but I guess they're really one in the same aren't they?


The castle is still active today, housing the King's Own Royal Border Regiment as it has for the last for 300 years. In the inner bailey, there's a museum dedicated to the regiment on site along with an interesting collection of Roman finds.

So, after touring one of the buildings charged with holding back the Scots all of those years, we decided that we were so close we should just drive to Scotland to see what all of the fuss was about. (And so my Aunt Pat & Uncle Chuck could say they'd been to Scotland :) We randomly pinpointed the city of Gretna Green since it was on the highway right across the border. It appeared to be a sleepy village, but at the same time, ready for a modern invasion. It had a free large public parking area (rare) for both cars and coaches (aka buses) and bathrooms designed for crowd control with a massive line of stalls and "in" and "out" doors. Even some of the airports around here have smaller bathrooms. Just off the parking lot was a massive shopping complex with all the Scottish paraphernalia a tourist could want. I figured it was just some kind of tour bus bathroom break spot.

Pat later found out from his co-workers that Gretna Green is the Las Vegas of weddings around here. When England toughened their marriage laws in 1753, people started fleeing over the border to Gretna Green's Blacksmith's Shops to tie the knot. This happened for a couple of reasons 1) Scotland's marriage law is and was more lenient than England's, allowing underage people to get married without parental consent and 2) according to Wikipedia, "Scottish law allowed for 'irregular marriages', meaning that, so long as a declaration was made, in front of two witnesses, almost anybody had the authority to conduct the marriage ceremony." So the blacksmiths, the forgers of two metals, became "anvil priests," the forgers of love. Although some of the laws have changed, Wikipedia says, "Today, Gretna Green remains one of the most popular wedding venues in the world, and thousands of couples still come from all over the world to be married 'over the anvil' at Gretna Green."


Appropriately, we saw a wedding party leaving while we were there, but thought nothing of it. We thought the "Blacksmith Shop" had something to do with metal work. Stupid tourists :)

* All photos courtesy of my Aunt Pat's camera. Gretna Green photo courtesy of Wikipedia.