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

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

That last photo is striking, not least because I'm trying to decide how the graves got so close to the bases of those trees. The bodies must have been buried first, and then saplings planted. In colder, darker weather, it looks as though it would be the perfect setting for the Headless Horseman to chase poor Ichabod to the bridgehouse.

British countryside has me thinking about American folklore - curious.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think you're right, the graves are 19th century and were almost certainly there before the trees.

Washington Irving was an Anglophile and England is positively swarming with headless ghosts.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

England is positively swarming with headless ghosts.

Well, you did have an affinity for the chopping block in your day!

Makes me think the American West should have ghosts running around with hangman's nooses about their necks.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't know about nooses, but, from what I hear, some of those Wild West towns- Tombstone for instance-are full of ghosts.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...I've been to Tombstone. The "ancient" 19th century graveyards are interesting, as is the scene of the OK Corral and courthouse-cum-gallows. But I never saw much by way of ghosts there. Maybe they have to season a few more centuries.