Castle ruins

This weekend my wife and I visited an old castle (I had been wanting to do it for months), or what was left of it. It was mainly ruins in a park really and what was once medieval had been mixed with more modern stones. The lion you can see on the left side picture, for instance, has been placed there much later. The original building dates back from the XIth century, which is quite impressive in itself, even though there is very little left of it. It used to be a fortress, it is not a place visited by local families, a playground for wide eyed children. It is still nice that they can access historical grounds and maybe learn from it, or at least dream about ancient times. I am still a child in this aspect: these places make me dream. I am never blasé of being in them or seeing them.

I sometimes forget that we live in England and that this was once a medieval country. I am sure there are more ruins like this one to find around here, I will need to do some serious research about it. This was not as impressive as Penrith Castle, but it was still very nice. I could picture my characters from Dungeons & Dragons exploring these ruins. Add a few monsters in there and you have a wonderful adventure setting. It probably is the setting of many make believe games of these children that were there.

It is maybe a bit of a shame that I know little about medieval architecture (or archeology) and cannot dientify what is old and what is new, and cannot just discover things in those ruins just by looking at them. I need to read about it to know its history, and then the past really takes life. Visiting a place like this, I often regret not being a full fledged historian. It is also a shame that all I can think of when I see such a place is of a role playing game setting. Still, even as a simple visitor, it is quite an experience.