What We Did Last Thursday

[poliphilo]

In the morning we went and wandered round Kenilworth Castle. We have a year's membership of English Heritage- and I mean to get my money's worth. Kenilworth belonged to a guy called de Clinton (an ancestor of Bill's?  I wonder...) who was your archetypal Norman brute and then to Simon de Montfort and John of Gaunt and a succession of English kings. It was a place where history happened. Eventually it passed to Robert Dudley- Elizabeth I's favourite- who went on a building spree and turned it into a Tudor palace. It got caught up in the Civil War and Cromwell slighted it- demolishing walls so it could never be garrisoned again. Most of it has been in ruins ever since.



Castles leave me cold, I've decided. Most of them, anyway. Kenilworth impresses, but is all about power and money and violence and ambition. 

Give me a monastic ruin anyday....

There's one on the other side of town, in the grounds of the parish church. Monasteries are about power and money and violence and ambition too- but also something else.

Here's what's left of the gatehouse...



And here's a curiosity. A romanesque doorway, snaffelled from the abbey, surrounded by Elizabethan fancy-work and installed in the parish church. This was probably done by Robert Dudley as part of an attempt to tart up the church in anticipation of a visit from the queen.



And here- just because I like it- is the churchyard path.



Curious. All these pictures are of gateways, portals.... I think it must say something about my current state of mind.

In the evening we went to see Hamlet... but I've already written about that.

Comments

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

What a Romanesque doorway! Quite elaborate.

I like the photo of the castle, not for the castle, but because of the contrasting greenery beyond. It's almost a "this is what we were fighting for" photo.

And of course, the churchyard path is great. All those bodies nourishing those trees, and the figure in the distance.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I love anything romanesque- all that bold, chunky carving. The pointed decoration on the middle band of the arch is actually made up of fabulous, long-snouted beasties.

I took a lot of pictures at the castle, but that's the only one I really like- maybe because it seems to offer an escape route.

I had to get my skates on to capture that vista down the pathway before the figure "disappeared".

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I don't know if you feel like you're getting your money's worth from your English Heritage membership, but I feel like I'm getting it!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Heh-heh-heh.

Actually, a lot of the best stuff's for free. We didn't have to pay anything to wander round Kenilworth parish church.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I've said this before, there is something so inherently English about your photographs. I'm not much of an Anglophile, but I appreciate their authenticity.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

I'm not entirely sure what "English" looks like- but I know it's what I'm trying to capture...

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

I don't know what it means, either, other than that with most of your photographs, even if I didn't know where they taken, I'd have to say "England!"

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Something to do with the light maybe?