Monday 28 September 2009

Walmer Castle, pleasant places to go in easy reach of Thanet.

Wondering where to go yesterday afternoon with a limited amount of time it had to be in easy reach of Thanet I thought it about time to rejoin English Heritage and revisit some of the main local historical attractions.

Walmer Castle is one of a string of defences built by Henry VIII in 1540 apart from a three week siege in The English Civil War 1648 I don’t believe it ever came under attack.

Walmer Castle’s main use has been as the residence for he Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports since 1708 and over the last 300 years considerable modification has been made to turn a military structure in to a comfortable residence.

Photography isn’t allowed inside the building but is in the grounds. Click on the links for the pictures.


http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts10/id12.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts10/id13.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts10/id14.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts10/id15.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/blogpicts10/id16.htm

At this point I usually make some excuse about the volume of photographs in their unedited state and promise to go back when I have time and delete the worst of them. Recently however several people have asked me to carry on sticking them up ad hoc, so I won’t.

There is quite a lot memorabilia of past Lord Wardens, for instance a pair of Wellington boots belonging to the first Lord Wellington for me though it is the funny incongruities of history (for instance that Wellington resident of a castle designed to repel catholic invaders should as prime minister be responsible for the catholic reform bill) and the influences of past lord wardens.

As I walked the grounds I liked to feel that I was somehow closer to at least two notable characters that were once lord Wardens Winston Churchill and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.

1 comment:

  1. Lovely, thank you. I must go there myself.

    ReplyDelete

Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.