Eerie Ewloe Castle

A-Z Challenge 2012 - E

Eerie Ewloe Castle

Ewloe Castle stands on a promontory in North-East Wales near the town of Harwarden, Flintshire. Its position near the English border gave it a strategic control of the road to Chester. Today its ruins are under the control of the Welsh heritage agency (Cadw – pronounced ‘kadu’.)

Ewloe Castle - 2008

The area had earned its place in history even before the castle was built as in 1157 Welshmen led by Owain Gwynedd, the then King of North Wales, nearly killed the English King Henry II at the battle of Ewloe.

Llywelyn the Last began the castle’s construction in 1257, adding to work undertaken by Owain Gwynedd and Llywelyn the Great.

At the outbreak of the Welsh Wars in 1277, Edward I left Chester and established a base at Flint. Although Ewloe may have been occupied by Edward, Flint and Rhuddlan castles were preferred; they could be restocked by sea and that’s why Ewloe went into decline.

Ewloe Castle - East Wing 2005

Stories of ghosts abound at Ewloe. A glowing spectre strolling the ramparts once so startled a dog that it never recovered from the shock and died two days later. Legends say that marching soldiers can be heard in the surrounding woodland. During thunderstorms the singing of a phantom crooner drifts down from the ramparts, loud enough to be audible above the storms.

Hilary Melton-Butchers Castle for D - Dover Castle

Image attribution:

• Ewloe Castle – 2008; by Brian Jorgensen; Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
• Ewloe Castle (east wing) – 2007; by Peter Craine; Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.
• Images from the Geograph project collection.

Dunluce Castle's Ponytailed Phantom

A-Z Challenge 2012 - D

Dunluce Castle’s Ponytailed Phantom

Dunluce Castle, a ruined medieval castle in Northern Ireland, sits on a basalt outcrop in County Antrim. This engraving shows it in a dramatic light.

Dunluce Castle (1848 Engraving)

The first castle on the site was built by the MacQuillans in the 14^th century. However the castle is firmly linked to the MacDonnells who occupied it in the 16^th. It was Sorley Boy MacDonnell who took the castle by force after the Battle of Orla in 1565. In 1584 Sir John Perrot, Queen Elizabeth I’s Lord Deputy of Ireland led an army which battered the castle into submission, He evicted Sorley Boy and installed Peter Carey as constable of the castle.

The Queen was not amused and granted the castle back to Sorley Boy in 1586. Sorley Boy promptly hanged Carey from the south-east tower’s ramparts. Carey’s ghost sporting a ponytail and clad in a purple cloak has wandered the tower ever since.

Sorley Boy’s son Randal; was made 1^st Earl of Antrim by King James I. But in 1639 it was the second Earl and his Countess who were there when part of the castle and the kitchens fell into the sea; only one boy in the corner of the kitchen surviving. Subsequent to the impoverishment of the MacDonnells after the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 the condition of the castle deteriorated and has remained in ruins ever since.

Dunluce Castle 2005

Given by the Earl of Antrim to the Northern Ireland Government in 1928 Dunluce Castle has become a National Monument under the care of the Department of the Environment.

Hilary’s Castle for C is Croft Castle

Attribution

• 1848 Engraving of Dunluce Castle, County of Antrim, by William Miller after John Thomson of Duddingstone. For the Members of the Royal Association for the Promotion of Fine Arts in Scotland.
• Dunluce Castle 2005 by Kenneth Allen - Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license 2.0
• Video - Irish Rovers, Dunluce Castle

Mirror, Mirror! - Thematic Photography

Winter has returned to Scotland and the North of England today, golf was aborted as a result. This meant I had time to check out some mirrors, real and virtual.

Lounge Mirror

To understand what you see you have to remember Snell's Law - the angle of incidence = the angle of reflection. So what you see is the lamp and pictures on the walls to the right of the photo.

If that's too difficult, let's look at a framed picture acting as a mirror on my office wall..

Map of the County of Lincolnshire

The reflection comes from the window off scene right. I hope you can make out the branches of some trees.

In the bathroom a shaving/beauty mirror stands on the window ledge and gives this effect.

Bathroom Mirror

What interests me about this shot is not the image shown in the mirror, but the frosted glass window behind it. It is not green, The lawn outside is what makes the background colour.

When I saw the result of my next shot I though immediately of Alice and Through the Looking Glass.

Hall mirror with the image of the front door

I eventually got sent out in the rain - I took my camera with me. 

Reflections in the rain

And when I saw this I thought of Gene Kelly.

Puddle reflections

 

So I guess that we need to do now is to dance off  to Carmi's for some more mirror images.

Chillingham Castle and the Radiant Boy

 A-Z Challenge 2012 C

Chillingham Castle and the Radiant Boy

Chillingham Castle is so serene in this picture from Morris’s Country Seats (1880)

Chillingham Castle (1880)

With a name like Chillingham the castle just has to be haunted, doesn’t it?

Chillingham Castle in England’s Northumberland is claimed to be the most haunted in Britain. This 12^th century stronghold was stormed by the Grey family in 1246. In 1298 Edward I stayed at the stronghold on his way to battle the Scots. Chillingham became a castle in 1344 after Edward III granted a licence for it to be crenellated. It remained in the Grey’s possession until in 1933 the last descendants, then the Tankervilles, moved out. In 1983 the ruin was taken over by Sir Humphrey Wakefield whose wife is a member of the Grey family. Visitors can explore the castle and its grounds, restored by the Wakefields, and may even stay overnight to experience for themselves its twisting stone stairways, echoing corridors and creepy dark dungeons.

Chillingham Castle - 2005

The most famous of Chillingham’s ghosts is that of the Radiant Boy. The boy, dressed in blue, found documents intended to help the Spanish defeat the English during the time of the Spanish Armada. The boy’s body was found during 1920’s restoration work along, with fragments of blue cloth, where he had been walled up alive. His finger boned had been worn down where he had tried to scratch his way out.

Sometimes on the stroke of midnight you can hear his heart rending cries of agony and fear. The centre of the cries always emanate from the castle’s Pink room. The noises are usually traced to a spot near a passage cut through a ten-foot wall. As the wails die away, a bright halo of light sometimes appears around an old four poster bed; anybody sleeping in the bed would see the figure of a young boy dressed in blue, approaching them.

For more about castles you may like to follow Hilary’s B - Balmoral Castle, Scotland

Attributions:

• Chillingham Castle in Northumberland from Morris’s County Seats (1880) – public domain.
• Chillingham Castle; By Glen Bowman; Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License.

Bamburgh's Pink Lady

A-Z Challenge 2012 - B

Bamburgh’s Pink Lady

Bamburgh Castle stands on a massive rock on Northumberland’s North Sea coast.

Bamburgh Castle (Nesfield)

The castle site may have been a prehistoric settlement but the first reference to a castle was in AD 547. Built by the Normans, besieged unsuccessfully by William II in 1095, targeted by the Scots, Bamburgh Castle was the first English castle to be defeated by artillery during the Wars of the Roses in 1464.

The Forster family had been governors of the castle for 400 years before the Crown granted them ownership. In 1700 Sir William Forster died bankrupt and the castle was sold to the Bishop of Durham. During the 18 and 19^th centuries various owners undertook restoration of the castle. It was the wealthy Victorian industrialist, William Armstrong, who is credited with bringing the castle to how we see it today.

Bamburgh Castle (Bowman)

But what of Bamburgh’s Pink Lady?

We are told that the father of a Northumbrian princess not approving of the boy she loved banished him overseas for seven years. Forbidden to exchange messages with her love the girl became more and more depressed. Finally the king told his daughter that the boy had married someone else. To cheer his daughter up after this news the king ordered the castle seamstress to make the princess a fine dress in her favourite colour – pink.

Still distraught, the girl climbed to the highest battlements and flung herself to her death on the rocks below – wearing that pink dress.

Her lover returned from exile, unmarried and was heartbroken by the lost of his love. What happened to him no one knows.

Every seven years Bamburgh’s Pink Lady, the princess clothed in shimmering pink, wanders the castle, glides down the rocky path to the beach and stands on the sands – gazing sadly out to sea, waiting for the return of her lost love.


Another legend linked to Bamburgh Castle is that of the toad-queen said to live in a cave beneath the castle. Supposedly the doors to the cave open very seventh Christmas Eve. The toad-queen will not return to her normal shape until some hero arrives…..

The Spindlestone

The Childe of Wynde, son of the King of Northumbria, tethered his horse to the whinstone pillar near the town known as Spindlestone before going off to fight the Laidley Worm. This fearsome creature terrified the people of the area. In reality it was the king’s daughter turned into a dragon by her stepmother. Childe set out to fight the dragon not aware it was his sister – the Worm refused to fight. The refusal broke the spell on her; the princess resumed her normal shape.

The queen was changed into that toad-queen, waiting for some hero to unsheathe the Childe of Wynde’s sword three times, to blow Childe’s horn three times and finally to kiss the toad.

Attributions

• Bamburgh Castle; Oil on canvas date unknown; William Andrews Nesfield; public domain.
• Bamburgh Castle; author Glen Bowman; Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License
• The Spindlestone (2007) at Spindlestone Heughs as included in the legend of the Laidley Worm; author Wayne Phillips; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic License

Amberley's Lustful Bishop

A-Z Challenge 2012 - A

Amberley’s Lustful Bishop

Amberley Castle is located in West Sussex, England. It was built as a 12^th century manor house by Bishop Luffa. It was fortified in 1377 when Bishop Reede received a license to crenellate it from Richard II. It then had a stonework enclosure with high curtain walls, towers, a hall and a massive gatehouse. The Bishops of Chichester used Amberley as a fortress.

The castle passed to the Crown and became a royalist stronghold in the English Civil War. Charles II took shelter there after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651 prior to heading for exile.

Amberley Castle

The castle remained in private hands after its purchase by the Duke of Norfolk. After 1989 it became a luxurious country hotel.

However you will find no mention in the hotel’s literature of the castle’s one time servant girl. Made pregnant by a lustful Bishop, poor Emily, deserted in her hour of need, died in childbirth. Her ghost is said to haunt the kitchens and to return to the top of the battlements from where she had leapt to her death.

Amberley Castle Walls

Attributions:

• Amberley Castle, East Sussex; author Jonathan Day; Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license 2.0 
• Amberley Castle walls; author Colin Day; Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license 2.0

Algeria to Zambia - Sunday Stamps

Any similarity to the A-Z Challenge which starts today is intentional. But this is a 'free for all' theme for Sunday Stamps.

I have a feeling I've shown these stamps before - the first and last in my World Album. So here we go from  A

Algeria

To Z

Zambia

For choices mad by others you need to visit Viridian's Sunday-stamps-64.