Castles and Churches

I trained as an archaeologist, and I got interested in history as a child partly because we visited lots of castles and churches on family holidays.
There happens to be a rather fine castle in Grosmont, not far from Monmouth, so that was the plan for Tuesday. It was a bit of a rainy day, but we all had wellies and waterproofs.
Grosmont castle is free to get into - there are a few signboards dotted around to tell you what you're looking at, but apart from that you just wander straight in. It was built as part of a system of defence against the Welsh, along with the nearby White Castle and Skenfrith, but Grosmont soon became a sort of Royal holiday cottage. The fine chimney which once served the private chambers at the back of the castle is known as Eleanor's chimney, after Queen Eleanor of Provence, wife of King Henry III - though the chimney itself was built after her time, when the castle was held by the Earls of Lancaster. Eleanor was known as the White Rose, and that's supposed to be where the badge of the House of York comes from. One of the side chapels in the local parish church, St Nicholas', is known as the Eleanor Chapel.
It's a beautiful little castle, very compact with a deep dry moat (well, dampish at the bottom), standing in what is now a sloping field but was originally the outer bailey of the castle, where all the stables and bakehouse and brewery and other essential buildings were. Sadly, the cloud cover was low over the hills when we were there, because the view from the top of the wall is very fine.
I think the highlight of the visit for little James (though he did enjoy climbing up to the battlements) was when he found a dead slow worm in the grass near the moat!
Just across the way from the castle (and there would have been a small procession every Sunday from the Castle led by whoever was in residence at the time) is St Nicholas's Church, which is rather larger than a normal medieval church for a small town, because of the importance of the castle.
You enter the nave, which is cleared of chairs and just as it would have been in medieval times, with round pillars and a stone flagged floor. The church was renovated in Victorian times, and basically split in two by a wooden screen. The part that is used today as the church is through the screen, at the chancel end of the church, with two side chapels. The font has been moved to one of these. There's also an organ which doubles as a barrel organ, playing 12 hymn and psalm tunes for when an organist was not available, showing that programming keyboards is nothing new!
Their memorial to the soldiers of the First World War is quite unusual - first it lists all the men of Grosmont who went to fight, and underneath that those who died. There were some unusual jobs, too, like Air Mechanic and Driver, which aren't normally mentioned. We couldn't find anything to commemorate the Second World War - maybe nobody from the town went.
After that, it was time to repair to the pub, the Angel, which served good, hearty food and some excellent real ales and ciders. One of the choices was Angel Burger, which worried me a bit - thinking of those poor, defenceless angels being hunted down for their meat. It was delicious, though. My young man had a rather wonderful cider called Black Dragon, from Gwynt y ddraig, and they had three real ales on hand pump, including Otter. I asked for a half, and Mark wanted to know if I wanted the top half of the otter or the bottom half.
On the way back to Hay, we passed through Abbey Dore, so we stopped at the church there. In the middle ages, this church was enormous. It's big now, and only the stump of the East end is left. When the Cistercians had the abbey, the nave of the church stretched the entire length of what is now the graveyard - 60 metres. There's plenty of space inside for concerts - the stage was set up when we went in - without that interfering with the area around the altar, which is the original Cistercian one. Perhaps because it's so simple, it looks strikingly modern. The altar and pews are set in the centre of an ambulatory which goes right round the outside of the church, and where fragments of the original decorative stonework are displayed.
It was lovely to get out to these places again (it's very difficult without a car), and to share them with a group of interested people, including a fascinated five year old boy. We'll make a historian of him yet.