Raby Castle

[dawn_felagund]

Bobby and I woke early on this day to try to squeeze in the Tynemouth Castle and Priory--literally a five-minute walk down the street from Sharon and Kirsty's flat--before Kirsty's dad Joe picked us up to go to Raby. Despite the lady in the castle shop being quite certain that the castle would be open yesterday--today at the latest--it was still

Comments

[ssotknapsack]

Cool photos! Even though I was there :-P, I'm following all your trip journals with interest. I love how you've picked up on things I didn't even notice, like the coat of arms above the door/window. That's awesome!

Did you hear the tour guide explain why the doors are so small? I always thought it was because they were shorter back then, but he said it was designed that way to keep the heat in. Does Bobby know if this is correct?

As we toured the castle, I found myself growing increasingly annoyed with those residents in the 18th and 19th centuries, who often found the medieval construction unsuited to their tastes and so completely redid things, often demolishing entirely the older structures.That bugs the hell out of me too. I love castles circa 1200-1500; anything after that, including WWII cannons *cough* Tynemouth *cough* is nice but not really my area of interest. I enjoyed the trip to Raby but I wish they had left it as a real castle (although I don't think today's aristocrats would want to love in a "real" castle

[ssotknapsack]

I just looked it up - Raby Castle is in Staindrop. Ewwwwwwww! Imagine owning a castle and having to put "Staindrop" on your correspondence. ;-P

[greenknight33]

Hey there Brew! I think that I may be able to shed a little bit of light on the size of the castle doors. In my most educated guess I would think that they were built so small for a combination of both the size of people back then and the requirement to retain heat. As you mentioned, they certainly couldn't just put the heatin' on in those days :) Therefore it is highly likely that they were small and narrow in order to prevent heat from escaping, especially in the winter months when fires were roaring throughout the castle. We know that heat retention was always on the minds of castle architects so this is not surprising

[ssotknapsack]

Thanks for the info, Sir Bobby! I knew you'd know the answer. :)

When the guide said that medieval people were the same height as we are today, I was a bit skeptical - not only was it the first time I'd heard this, but I'd seen the armour and clothing you mentioned and they did (generally) seem smaller. Anyway! It's a great debate and I guess we'll never know the answer for sure. Even the medieval people probably had a few Yao Mings among them (well, not a Chinese guy. I don't think that happened so much in medieval England).

[whitewave16]

Thanks for sharing the pictures, they're really worth a gazillion words. I love the gardens. I'm going to check out the photobucket ones later too.

[rhapsody11]

*sits down with a cuppa tea*

Gorgeous castle! When we were in Ireland, we stumble upon a castle build in the same style in Lismore. Like this castle, only the gardens were open for visitors when the Duke and Duchess weren't in residence. However to earn some extra cash for the upkeep, you can rent it. A fabulous concept!

Looking at Raby Castle, it looks like a well build strong hold and probably was never savaged and burnt down (that's also how we lost some of our most precious castle or line a Donjon nearby, shelled almost in ruin by the Germans in WWII given its strategic position nearby a river or inner county feuds over here), so its not only lack of interest in history or different tastes in fashion sadly enough... However these colourful histories come with intriguing myths and folklore with ghosts and...