Brogyntyn - Castell

Castell Brogyntyn is a univallate 'hill fort', supposedly of the Iron Age, and scheduled accordingly as an ancient monument.

It is, however, decidedly symmetrical, and was likely rescarped, perhaps in the 1760s. The very flat interior is understood to have been home, in that period, to a bowling green.

A stone-lined tunnel, about 70 yards long, passes underneath the 'castle', curved such that one cannot see from one end to the other.

In the Glasshouse

The World of Glass Museum in St Helens, which incorporates the Pilkington Glass Museum, is home to the remains of the oldest surviving gas-fired continuous-tank glass furnace in Europe. The furnace is contained within the Grade II*-listed No.9 Tank House, itself part of Pilkington's Jubilee Glassworks, built next to the Sankey Canal.

The tank house, known locally as the Hotties, boasts a truncated conical flue that once rose above the Siemens regenerative furnace below, installed by Pilkington's in 1889 and in use until 1920. The materials to make glass were fed on a continuous basis into a brick-lined tank and melted together, to provide an endless stream of molten glass. A throat part-way along the tank filtered out impurities. The molten glass was blown into cylinders eight feet long, which were cut open, flattened and polished to produce window glass.

Heat derived from burning coal-gas, used to melt together the raw materials, was recirculated beneath the tank, through a series of flues filled with a latticework of refractory bricks, to keep the molten glass workable. These flues, and the swing chambers in which the cylinders were formed under the influence of gravity, could be accessed by brick-arched service tunnels.

Berkhampsted Castle

Berkhampsted is arguably the most important of the early Norman castles: it was here that William the Conqueror received the submission of the English, after the Battle of Hastings. Controlling the northern approach to London, thirty miles away, William's half-brother Robert of Mortain built, circa 1070, a wooden castle, atop a 43 foot motte, surrounded by a huge bailey. The castle is unusual in that it had two surrounding moats.

Thomas à Becket, Lord Chancellor to Henry II, was granted the castle in 1155, when the first stone buildings were erected. The curtain walls too were built under Becket. The castle was though besieged in 1216 by Prince Louis of France. The possibly first use of trebuchets on British soil overcame the defences. The Earls of Cornwall held the castle for much of the 13th century, and the first Duke of Cornwall, the Black Prince, honeymooned there in 1361.

The castle fell into disuse late in the fifteenth century, and declined thereafter. The railway from Euston, built in 1838, cut across the outer earthworks, but the twin trenches remain in good order. The brick cottage that sits inside the castle, still owned by the Duchy of Cornwall, was built in 1865.

Grim's Dyke

Standing high on the Harrow Weald is a hotel that was once home to Sir W.S. Gilbert. Its name, Grim's Dyke, comes from the remains of the nearby ancient defensive earthwork, Grime's Dyke, which defined part of the boundary of the lands of the Catuvellauni, and which as it passes the house now forms a partial moat.

The house was built, between 1870 and 1872, for the painter Frederick Goodall RA. The architect was Norman Shaw, who had been a pupil of George Edmund Street (architect of the Royal Courts of Justice). Shaw designed Old Scotland Yard and Vauxhall Bridge, and his domestic work was a precursor to that of Sir Edwin Lutyens. His tile-hung gables, tall chimneys, mullioned windows with leaded lights, and timber framing served to give the impression of great age.

Goodall sold in 1880 to the banker Robert Heriot, who added in 1883 a billiard room (now the restaurant) designed by Arthur Cawston. W.S. Gilbert bought the house in 1890, for £4,000, and added further bedrooms, using the architects Ernest George and Harold Peto. He converted the drawing room into a library, now the hotel bar; and Goodall's studio, complete with minstrel's gallery, into a drawing room, now a conference and reception room.

Grim's Dyke was jointly acquired by the Middlesex and London county councils in 1937, and leased for use as a tuberculosis recuperation centre. During WWII the house was home to an engineering unit that investigated captured German equipment, including the Nazis' first jet engine. The hospital closed in 1963, and the steadily dilapidating house was used as a film set. It was Grade II*-listed in 1970, and opened as a hotel in 1971.

Clifton Observatory

A splendid view of the Clifton Suspension Bridge can be had from a balcony cantilevered out from the mouth of Ghyston's, or St Vincent's, Cave, 90 feet below the top, and 250 feet above the foot, of St Vincent's Rocks.

The tunnel to this, excavated by the artist William West, is accessed from the nearby Grade II listed Observatory. This started life in 1766 as a corn mill, was later used to grind snuff, and was abandoned in 1777 when a strong gale over-drove the sails and set light to the mechanism.

West rented the mill from 1828, used it as his studio, and installed a camera obscura. He also determined to link the Observatory to Ghyston's Cave, previously accessible only via the cliff face. The cave has at times served as a chapel, is first mentioned as such in the early fourth century.

The tunnel, through limestone, is 2,000 feet long, took two years to cut, and first opened in 1837. Stone and brick steps make an initial descent, which is continued more gradually by way of concrete steps. A metal stairway drops into the cave, from which there are steps up to the suspended balcony.

Limassol, Cyprus - Town

With a population of just over 100,000, Limassol - also Lemesos, its older name - is the largest town in Cyprus. The town is one of contrasts, touristy lanes in the centre and the more interesting dusty corners of the area immediately outside this.

Limassol makes a strong claim to be one of the oldest continuously-inhabited towns in the world, its roots stretching back to 2000 BCE.

Richard the Lionheart, on his way to the third crusade, called here in 1191, when Cyprus came under the control of the Anglo-Normans. It was sold a year later to the Templars.

It can seem as though everyone has controlled Cyprus at some time. The French, the Venetians, the Ottomans, and again the British, from 1878. The British Sovereign Areas of the island remain a key military asset.

Limassol's role as a tourist destination took off when the Turkish invasion of 1974 lead to Famagusta and Kyrenia, the previous key resorts, being occupied. They continue so, in defiance of numerous United Nations resolutions.

Shrewsbury Battlefield, 1403

On 21 July 1403, the armies of King Henry IV and Henry Percy engaged each other about three miles north of the centre of Shrewsbury. The Battle of Shrewsbury was an exceedingly bloody one, the first occasion on which English longbow archers had fought each other, and resulted in an estimated 5,000 deaths.

The Percy family had backed Henry in his war with Richard II and had helped him to the throne in 1399. Henry, however, reneged on his promise of reward lands, and failed to provide funds to help the Percys protect the north of the kingdom. The Earl of Northumberland, with others, set out a list of grievances and demands, and his son, Henry Percy, known as Hotspur, headed south. In Cheshire he recruited experienced archers, but his army likely consisted of no more than 14,000. Hotspur's expected reinforcements, under Owain Glyndŵr, never arrived.

Henry IV was already on his way north, ironically to assist the Percys against the Scots. The king was apprised at Burton-on-Trent of the revolt of the Percys, and headed west to address the new threat, with a force estimated at anything up to 60,000. Battle was joined about a mile south of where now stands Battlefield Church.

The Cheshire bowmen inflicted much damage, and Henry's right wing broke down. Hotspur led a charge directly upon the king in an effort to capitalise upon a temporary advantage against superior force. The battle ended when it became known that he had been killed in the attempt: "...time, that takes survey of all the world, / Must have a stop" (Henry IV, Part 1, Act V, Sc. 4).

A chantry chapel, reputed to lie above a mass grave associated with the battle, was completed in 1409. A year later this became a college of chaplains. There are remains of the fishponds that sustained the chaplains. The chapel was integrated into a larger church, completed about 1460, which itself became a parish church in 1548. Heavily restored in 1860-62, the church was declared redundant in 1982.

Broadwell Conduit Head, Shrewsbury

Hidden away in the woods of the Nobold area of Shrewsbury, Shropshire, are the remains of the sixteenth-century conduit head from which the town was supplied with water from 1556, right through to 1947.

The conduit head building, Grade II listed, is constructed of roughly-squared red sandstone, timber trusses to each gable, and plain tiles, and dates to about 1578. Inside is a single space, taken up with a brick-lined water tank.

Water was collected from nine wells in the immediate vicinity, seven of which can be easily located amongst the briars. The wells are accessed by a series of interconnected and covered boardwalks, tiled with shingles.

From the site, known as Broadwell, water was piped into town, originally in hollowed-out elm trunks, elm being resistant to decay when permanently wet. Five of the later outlets once associated with the system survive in the town.

Originally a licensed private enterprise, the facility was acquired by the town's corporation in 1878. On the same site is a later pumping house, of 1903, which was in the 1980s converted by Severn Trent Water into a visitor centre, now closed and vandalised. The council acquired the site in 2007, but has, of course, done nothing with it.

Hemlock Hillock, Nottingham

The Hemlock Stone is a pillar of Nottingham Castle sandstone. Such rock is normally weakly cemented, but this outcrop is firmly held together by the mineral barytes, which increases in proportion towards the top of the pillar. Over the last 20 million years the softer overlying and surrounding sediments have been eroded, and the barytes-rich 'cap' has protected the strata beneath it. There is a fanciful story about the stone featuring in ancient Celtic druidic rituals, but no evidence.

Ruthin Castle

As was common, Ruthin Castle started life in wooden form. It was rebuilt in red sandstone between 1277 and 1282 as part of Edward I's iron ring of fortresses, which included the castles of Caernarfon, Harlech and Conwy. Dafydd, the brother of Prince Llywelyn ap Gruffydd, held Ruthin on Edward's behalf, but proved a traitor.















Reginald de Grey recovered the castle from Dafydd, and the de Greys owned it through to 1402, when Owain Glyndŵr captured and ransomed Reginald de Grey. Ruthin was sold to the Crown in 1508, and remained crown property until sold by Charles I in 1632. In 1646 the castle was subjected to an eleven week siege and subsequently slighted by the Parliamentarians.

































The modern 'castle' was built in 1826 within the mediaeval ruins. During the period that it was owned by the Cornwallis-Wests, Ruthin was enjoyed by the Prince of Wales (Bertie) and his mistresses various, including Lillie Langtry. From 1923 to 1950 the castle was home to a private hospital that specialised in obscure diseases. In the early 1960s it was converted into an hotel. The 19th-century portion houses comfortable public rooms and a good number of pleasantly grand bedrooms, the whole faded enough not to overwhelm.

The mediaeval remains provide for plenty of exploration - a spiral staircase (embrasure above) runs within the curtain wall between what would have been the inner and outer baileys. Walks around the grounds are likely to be in the company of the resident peacocks, of which there are a dozen or so.

Kenilworth Castle

The royal chamberlain Geoffrey de Clinton built the keep at Kenilworth in the 1120s. King John added, in the early 1200s, an additional circuit of walls and a dam in order to provide the castle with a defensive lake. But it was John of Gaunt who developed Kenilworth into a palace, principally through constructing the great hall (above), between 1373 and 1380.

In 1563 the castle was given by Queen Elizabeth I (Elizabeth for Scottish readers) to Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, quite possibly her lover but most certainly her favourite. Dudley lavished money on the palace, making it fit to receive his queen on her progresses through her realm. 

Leicester caused to be built a new gatehouse (above and below) to provide a grand arrival space. Although the interior was solidly Elizabethan, the exterior design echoed the style of a century earlier, and has about it shades of the castle at nearby Kirby Muxloe. The gatehouse is virtually intact.

Dudley also created what is now known as the Elizabethan Garden, for the queen's fourth sojourn at Kenilworth, in 1575. Of 19 days' duration, such a visit would have financially ruined a less-favoured member of the court. The garden was recreated in 2009, and includes a large wooden aviary (below).
















After the Civil War, in 1650, the defensive parts of the castle were slighted. Sir Walter Scott was inspired by the resultant ruins to pen his 1821 novel, Kenilworth. Since 1984 the castle has been in the care of English Heritage, who have carefully restored key elements without making Disney-esque mistakes.

The Berth of Legends

Hidden away in north Shropshire, and on private land, is The Berth, a mid-Iron Age 'hillfort' of about 300 BC. The site has been claimed as the capital of the Welsh king Cynddylan, and as the Isle of Avalon, the burial place of King Arthur, though little archaeological work has been undertaken.

In plan, the fort is akin to a memorial ribbon, a smaller enclosure linked by a causeway to its larger cousin. The construction is not atop a hill, but upon marshland, and would have gained its defence by virtue of originally being surrounded by water. A sense of what the site may have been like is provided by the adjoining Berth Pool.

Wenlock Priory

The priory at Much Wenlock has been founded twice over. It was originally founded in 680 by the Mercian king, Merewalh. Nepotism saw his daughter, Milburga, installed as abbess, whose convenient raising to sainthood served to bring in funds.

The Normans refounded Wenlock as a Cluniac priory. There are remains of the thirteenth-century priory church, and of a beautifully blind-arcaded chapter house of circa 1140. The infirmary wing survived the Dissolution of 1540, and remains intact as a private residence (above).

In the cloister garth is a 16-position lavabo (top), ornamented with carvings of the twelfth century, used for the washing of hands before entering the nearby refectory. It is now surrounded by a number of topiary forms.