Conisbrough Castle

Last Saturday I went on a day bus trip arranged by MANCASS (Manchester Anglo-Saxon Society) around Yorkshire.  It would have been a shame to spend all of my time while I'm here at libraries, conference rooms, and inside my flat, after all.  So off I went.  We got to see and cross the Humber River - three times.  We spent time at Barton-on-Humber, where I tried new foods, got teased by the waitress about my accent, and bought my first Turkish Delight.  I saw lots of baby animals, especially lambs, and pheasants.  I also spent the day talking to Dr. Hannah Priest, a goth type woman who studies vampires and werewolves in 12th, 13th and 21rst century literature.  It was great!

We went to a castle and four churches.  I'm going to focus my next few blog entries on each in turn.  The day started at Conisbrough Castle, made famous by a reference in Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, of which it is very proud.  It was built about 1180 for Hamelin Plantagenet, the half brother of king Henry II.

The main tower is around 100 feet high.  It took three flights of stairs to reach the top, one of which was outside the tower because they were concerned about weak walls due to battering ram damage.  Flash photography doesn't really capture the weight of all the rock around you, the dim light, or the uneven stairs.

Modernish wood floors were put in at every level for people to walk on, but they squeaked and didn't quite match the walls, which made me quite nervous. The third floor had a small room set off from the stairs that had interesting vaulting and decoration in the ceiling that was unexpected to me because of the early date of the building.  The gentleman in the picture was part of the group, but I don't know his name.

You can still see some of the paint and plaster on the ceiling.

Once at the top, you get a really good view of the surrounding countryside.

The yellowish fields in the background of this picture are actually a beautiful, vibrant color up close.  The distance and grey day make that difficult to see.  Apparently, in this part of the country large fields are planted with this.  It's rapeseed.  I don't know either.

While I was looking around at the vistas, I passed this feature about the same time as a woman and her grandchildren.  A girl of about ten asked what it was for, and grandma said it was where they put the kids when they were misbehaving.  Some things never change I guess.

The castle walls are very interesting.  Occasionally, a red stone is incorporated, and you can still see the whitewash that was used to make the whole building white and very noticeable from a distance.

The whole thing was very interesting and great to walk around on.  But English Heritage, the organization that preserves historic sites, has no sense of adventure:

Just because some of them look like this -

We only had about an hour and a half to walk around the grounds, see the castle, and go through the small visitor's center before we had to move on.  It was a very nice first tourist place for me, though.