relievedMonday. Drove to Pevensey, where we stayed in a 15th century cottage about 100 yards from the castle. It was really creaky. Went for a lovely evening stroll around the ruins. This was where the Norman fleet landed apparently.
Castle Greyskull...
Note moody moat.
A view from the castle through Roman arch, (note the difference in construction between the Roman Bailey wall and Norman Keep walls. Spot the pub). Still with me? We stayed in a cottage down that road.
Tuesday. We went to Battle (not literally) to see Battle Abbey and the Battle of Hastings battlefield (try that sentence when you're drunk). Very nice in the hot sunshine which got me despite the Factor 30 sunscreen.
The Novices room
Some room or other (I forgot to look)
Ruins
More ruins
Oh look, more ruins
The battlefield. Didn't see any arrows.
After that we went to Rye, which was boring.
Oh, the irony...
So we went and sat on the beach at Pevensey Bay instead.
Ow. Stones. No invasion fleet was spotted. Phew. (those people aren't us, btw)
Wednesday. Went to Brighton. No photos of the massive row I had with my mum in the street.
Saw the Wilmington Long Man chalk Hill Figure. Sadly not as well hung as the one at Cerne Abbas.
Then we went to see my uncle and that was it.
Thursday. Came home. Too lazy to look at anything else.
Saw a fun t-shirt once. It had a picture from the Bayeux Tapestry on it and the caption read: "I spy with my little eye, somthing beginning with 'A'. Any of those on sale at Battle?
Any of those on sale at Battle?
Didn't see one. They did have some chain-mail though, if you need some.
Glad to hear both you and your mum survived the holiday, including the invigorating row. How's the sunburn?
The camera is a HP635 digiral camera with 12x zoom (yay!). These pics were HUGE. I had to resize them by about 75%.
I love looking at ruins.
For some reason that just made me laugh.
And for some odder reason I want to see those Chalk Hill figures in person. I've never heard of them before.
Chalk Hill Figures are a bit of a specialist subject of mine (as you might be able to tell by the post). There are quite a few, 30-50 dotted around, especially in southern England where the chalk hills are. Some are thought to be ancient, like the Long Man, the Cerne giant and the Uffington White Horse. Others were cut into the hillside during a bit of a craze in the 1800's. Most of them were white horses. There's more on the subjust here.
In a 15 mile radius of me, we have at least 2 battlefields, a major Roman city, a celtic hillfort or three, burial mounds, a ancient trackway, the Hellfire caves, a castle ruin, a big estate with a large house. I could go on and I don't even think this area is a particularily remarkable place to visit for Britain.
I've never seen the Bulford Kiwi either, but I'm slowly ticking them all off. I'd seen the Long Man before, but what I hadn't realised was that there was the Litlington White Horse just up the road, so I got a photo of that too (but that came out a bit indistinct).I've been to Uffington and Westbury (this one might get mentioned in the WIP, not sure yet).
We have Indian mounds in our state. That is, burial sites. I also drive past an Indian battlefield up where my husband's from. It's where my husband's people kicked the Dakotas down into southwestern Minnesota, around the time of the American Revolution. I hear you can still find arrowheads there, though I haven't found any.
At least Indian mounds still mean something to people. Ours are just there to be dug up or have roads built over.