Ye olde Franke and Beans
Uncle B has been working hard lately and I’ve been watching him do it, so today we took a break, broke out the Weaselmobile and drove to Bodiam Castle, which is this stunning 14th Century semi-ruin along the River Rother.
It’s got everything you want in a Medieval castle: a big square sandstone thing with round towers on the corners and square towers in the walls, with gatehouses, crenellations, portculliseses, murder holes, machicolations and a big giant moat full of carp and fornicating ducks (well, they were certainly fornicating today).
It had a cameo role in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (as the establishing shot of “Swamp Castle“) and I caught Uncle B humming “Brave Sir Robin” under his breath in tune with the crumhorn music once or twice.
The castle wasn’t lived in for long and was deliberately ruined (or “slighted“) after the Civil War (theirs, not ours, duh) to keep it from being used as a fort again. Then good old Mad Jack Fuller bought it in 1829 and started excavating and shoring it up. Which they’re still doing.
The lady in the long linen cape and jingle bells (god, I hope she works there) told us that workmen on the sewer lines found a complete medieval pot and a piece of wood with a nail in it, just this morning.
The whole thing is covered in incised graffiti — mostly from the 19th Century, when it was an early tourist attraction. But I’m guessing this handsome meat and two veg, carved on the wall outside the guardtower loo, is a bit older.
What? Yes, I went to a beautiful 13th Century castle on a lovely Fall day, and all’s I brought you was some crude penis graffiti. Geez, learn to use Google, why don’t you?
October 20, 2010 — 10:17 pm
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