Avril Craighead's first letter on Castles

Have been visiting National Trust sites. If you put the average council house tenant today into accomodation equivalent to the average Lord's in mediaeval times they would complaim vociferously. Unfortunately the there doesn't seem to be a lot of information available on site regarding the design philosophy of these castles.

One I visited was moated and had a neat right angled bend within the moat to force anyone trying to storm the place to pass parallel to the defenses before being able to strike at the gate. Very sound - I imagine you could pick off quite a number of attackers and that they couldn't build up a lot of momentum. Still I was intrigued to notice that the back door had a bridge straight to it - made of wood so I assume they had some means of disposing of it when under attack. The castle was at the bottom of a hollow, probably necessary for water retention, and the doorways to the turrets faced out and away from the castle. This means that anyone trying to get up there could potentially meet an arrow in the face from someone outside - I would have thought that it would be better to have such doorways facing inwards.

The garderobes were beside each major room and I assume they just emptied into the moat - but there was a well at the base of one of the towers at the level of the moat - YECH. I assume their technology was insufficient to prevent seepage from one to the other?

The whole thing was pretty small but I guess the numbers of attackers must also have been fairly small. The stables would not have been big enough to hold many horses and I don't think there could have been carriages in use from the size of the gates and the bridge. God knows how they trotted up and down those steep tower stairs in armour. I had a pack on my back (for the camera) and found it very tight. I definitely would have been a stairway blocker and holding on with both hands.

Given the opportunity I definitely prefer to live in a house with modern conveniences and building.

Went to Igtham Mote last weekend - moated manor house with a nice garden. Once again the conveniences weren't, but it was a much later building and would have been a better place to live. The gardens were very nice - wild areas and very tame areas. Some pretty good hedging in the tame areas surrounding yards of various sizes. Would have allowed folks to be outside in varying degrees of wind without getting blown about too much. The last owner had been an American who had himself buried there with a memorial - he then donated it to the National Trust - must have been a pretentious type! Apparently he actually lived in it for a while - rather him than me.

Regards to all

Avril

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