The castle was built by the Normans who drove the Anglo Saxons out after they occupied what had been abandoned by the Romans. The Danes were involved at some point too. Most of the ancient British were either massacred or pushed westwards and the Normans doled out huge swathes of land to the Marcher Lords (favoured Norman fellow travellers) who had to pay for the upkeep and the defence of their own little kingdoms. There were once literally hundreds of castles along the Welsh borders but most are now in ruins.
Another favourite place of mine is Offa's Dyke, a few miles further west which once marked the border with between the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia and the Welsh kingdom of Powys. It was built on the orders of King Offa and ran for over 150 miles, roughly north -south. It was a huge earthwork, with a ditch on the Welsh side and an earth bank on the Anglo-Saxon side with a wooden palisade along the top of the mound. Some section are still clearly defined others, not so much. The earth mound can just be seen on the left horizon.
The top of the mound with England in the distance. The photograph was taken on a late summer afternoon.
This thread is running out of steam although I appreciate the beauty of those hills and rolling countryside. As for Covid-19, I have virus fatigue. I am sick to death of hearing about it and beginning to tune out the talking heads of politicians, media types and alleged experts.
When they finally ease up on the isolation here I expect that the roads north to the lake country will resemble this:
This is exactly the time that we should be paying the most attention and not letting our guard down. There is a sense over here in Europe that everything is back to normal as we begin to come out of lock down. They are talking about children going back to school, people getting back on crowded trains, restarting sports events. We are already seeing way too many people out of their houses, talking in the street in small groups and not observing social distancing. We have had loads of day trippers wandering around this week looking lost, but with the pubs and cafes shut they don't stay long. We even had about 20 cyclists on a jolly racing through. This virus hasn't gone away and if we relax too early it will be back with a vengeance. Personally, I think that 30,000+ dead is 30,000+ too many for the U.K. and that the U.S. will probably lose 150,000 in this first wave. We need to be even more careful now that people are switching off and taking their eyes off the ball. Wash your hands, stay safe and protect your loved ones.
Same over here ... we call it 'green concrete'. Not even worms can live in it. BTW lovely region you live in! ... so full of history. I would love to walk part of Offa's dike someday ... last year visited the 'Danewerke' which separated the Kingdom of Denmark from the Saxon tribes in the south, I believe it dates from the same period. It runs across the narrowest part of the Danish Isthmus. Nowadays it lays in Germany ... the Danish border shifted to the north after the 1864 war (Bismarck's first war).
I think that last part is what is known as the Schleswig-Holstein question. I never understood why Denmark didn't ask for her former provinces back in 1945. If this current madness ever ends you would be very welcome to come over and I will show you around. It takes about three weeks to walk the entire length of Offa's Dyke as a leisurely pace.
Down the road in Worcestershire are the Malvern Hills that have another ancient British earthwork, known as British Camp, at one end.
A view along the Malvern Hills from British Camp, the hill in the far distance is Worcestershire Beacon.
Beautiful ... and a far cry from the modest wooden 'Motte castles', which we used over here, even in the 9th and 10th Centuries a.D.
We also had Motte & Bailey castles over here but they were relatively useless as technology advanced. They seem to have been used as a defensive place to withdraw to when border raiders were looting and pillaging.
This is a photograph of Ludlow Castle which is about 15 miles from where I live. It did the job for several hundred years but lost its impregnability with the use of gun powder and cannon balls. It was held by the Royalists during the English Civil War but was captured by the Parliamentarians after a short siege. They could have avoided all the suffering incurred by just paying the £6 entrance fee as they tourists do today.
There is an antique - flea market every second Sunday in the square about fifty yards from the cannon. No one has had a stall near enough for me to be able to make an offer for it yet, as I reckon it would look good in my back garden.
