Thursday, January 10, 2008

Raglan Castle Revisited

I have been quite unwell the past week or so with a chest infection. The worse part of it is that I am having difficulty breathing which gets worse at night. As a result I have been working from home as going out makes me far worse. I did get out and about a bit over Christmas and the New Year though and one of the places I visited was Raglan Castle. I have been here a couple of times before and posted about it here and here. Being winter in the UK, the weather was not on it's best behaviour and was grey and cold and promised rain, a promise which it eventually kept. But not before I took a few photo's and the ones in this post were taken from the top of the Great Tower or keep where the views over the Monmouthshire countryside are beautiful, even on a cold grey day.

The photo above is looking across the fountain court of the castle with the Welsh hills in the distance and the one below is of the towers of the main gatehouse and the ruins of some of the living quarters including the kitchen, dining hall and library, which stand to the right of the fountain court in this view. If you enlarge the photo then you can see some of the ornate stonework that remains above one of the upper windows.

This next photo is not for the faint hearted as it is a view looking directly down from the top of the tower. With all the wooden floors and ceilings long gone after the tower was slighted during the civil war you can see right down to the cobbled ground floor. To the left of the photo you can see how thick the towers walls were as they were designed to withstand a siege and the mortars Cromwell's forces fired at the tower had little effect. After taking the castle, Cromwell ordered the tower to be slighted and this was done by undermining as it took too long to take apart by hand! In the top left of the photo you can even make out one of the castle latrines and the openings in the remaining walls are doorways, windows and large fireplaces. Seeing the castle as it is now it is difficult to imagine people actually lived here. Now pigeons seem to be the only residents.


The castle was quite moody and eerie the day we visited as we were practically the only people there. Most others I suspect being of much sounder mind than me, had stayed at home in the warm, or being of less sound mind than me were rushing around crowded shops in the sales. I know where I would rather be; after all, what's a little bit of rain?

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Better to be there without the tourists.

Get well over the weekend.

Cheers.

Anonymous said...

Absolutely beautiful.

"Moody" is a great description. I believe I know just exactly what you mean by that.

Since I live in the states and don't have the opportunity to see castles with my own eyes, I realy appreciate getting to see them through your camera lens.

Linda said...

Ah, that is so lovely! Thank you for sharing not only the pictures, but the descriptions as well, since they do help.

Kathryn & John said...

Beautiful pictures! Awesome sentiment. Michelle sent me...

Anonymous said...

I like such days when there is no crowd. THanks for shring beautiful photos.

Hope you are better now. Michele says hello too!

rashbre said...

Interesting soft light too, kind of wintry but with that slight almost misty slightly sound-deadening edge to it.

Very good pictures.

Brandy is supposed to be good for a bug like you seem to have picked up.

Get well soon!

rashbre

Sara said...

Hello, Michele sent me to say...I'm not even going to ask how you took that last photo!! I don't want to know...just looking down on it made me nervous!!! Love the photos of this castle. Like to look at them - since we don't have any here stateside.

Nikki - Notes of Life said...

Great photos... that last one would test my being scared of heights! I really need to get out and take some photos, but it always seems to be raining.

I hope you feel better soon. Half of work have been off at some point since the new year. *Fingers crossed* I've been OK so far. I swear by Soya Milkshakes to keep away colds etc... It's worked for over a year so far!

Susan Helene Gottfried said...

COOL! I want to go there and see this place for myself now!

Shephard said...

Those photos are wonderful. You have such a great eye for framing the shot. I love the patches of color in the one, esp.

Hope you're feeling better real soon.
~S

OldLady Of The Hills said...

Amazing pictures, Dear B-K...That one where you can see right down to the bottom flooring---WOW!
All the Castles you have shown us through your Blog are so fascinating...The History..The Age of these places...As you said, imagining how they must have looked when people actually lived there....It is quite Awesome, I think. Thanks for this, my dear...And HUGS, right back 'atchya from Across The Pond!
Do feel better...It's good yoi found out it's an infection.....I assume that means you are on Antibiotics...! Hope it gets better, Very Very Quickly!

Heather said...

wow, those are great photos. Michele sent me and I'm glad I stopped by. Get well, take care of yourself and thanks for the great view of something quite far away from me.

kenju said...

Bob-kat, take care of yourself! I love seeing old castles like this; the enlarged photos are fabulous! I feel as though I've been there, now that I've seen these.

Melody said...

Yeah, what's a little bit of rain!

Great shots of a fabulous old castle. The handy work that went into building it is amazing, all those many, many years ago. Fabulous. And it stood the test of time too. Magnificent.

Hope you're feeling better.

Jean-Luc Picard said...

Not to go if one has vertigo!

Michele sent me.

Anonymous said...

wow those are amazing photos. The middle one has colors that remind me of a fairy tale. Michele sent me and I'm glad she did.

OldLady Of The Hills said...

Keep on feeling better, my dear....And get rid of that nasty infection!

I will be answering your email, later on today---maybe tonight!"We had a power outage and I'm just getting everything back "on line"....!

kenju said...

I'm glad Michele sent me back because I wanted to show your photos to mr. kenju!

Julie Kwiatkowski Schuler said...

Gorgeous! I could do a million paintings of a place like that!

Hope you feel better soon.

JAM said...

Wow, the photos are incredible. I love the top one especially, with the brilliant green patch of grass in there.