A Snowy Trip to Newcastle

Wednesday 23 February 2005. It was a snowy but bright day heading over to Newcastle for a meeting of the Jisc Advisory Services. Besides Jisc infoNet that I worked for, there were Jisc Legal, Jisc TechDis, Jisc Netskills and a few staff from Jisc's central offices too.

As far as I remember, this was a meeting over two days, starting after lunch on the 23rd and ending after lunch on the 24th. It was 140 miles each way journey for me. Some had travelled from London and Bristol. On the way to Newcastle the A66 was looking a bit wintry and I was glad to get over the Pennines safely and onto the A1M. I stopped to take a quick photo of the Angel of the North in snow.

Thursday 24 February 2005. Overnight the snow caught up to Newcastle. This was the view from my bedroom that morning, looking towards Newcastle railway station with a GNER train pulling out on its journey south to York and beyond. The train is on a raised viaduct that now divides the castle keep from its barbican, the Black Gate.

There has been a fortress here since Roman times, guarding the crossing of the River Tyne at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall. The son of William the Conqueror, Robert Curthose built a motte and bailey castle here in 1080, being a mound of earth with a wooden pallisade and the current Keep, seen today was built by King Henry II from 1172 to 1177 with the Black Gate being added during Henry III's reign between 1247-1250.

Heading homeward again later that afternoon, the snow was falling heavily on the A66.

The road was still open but there wasn't much traffic attempting it and I knew I had a few exposed roads to come even once I left the A66.

On the West Yorkshire moors the wind was blowing hard, turning the snow into a whirling blizzard and starting to cover the road. At times I had no idea where the edges of the road were but luckily there was always a bit of clear tarmac so that I could see enough to avoid any risk of driving off on one side or the other.

By the time I was approaching Kirby Stephen, the hills were white but the road was reassuringly visible again!

Work Index

La Rocca, Riva del Garda's Medieval Castle

Wednesday 30 June 2003. After our jaunt to Torbole, we arrived back at Riva at the top end of Italy's Lake Garda, with sore feet and a desire to sit for a bit and do nothing much. The soreness in the feet has since worn off, but the desire to sit and do nothing has strangely remained...

So we found an empty bench on the corner of La Rocca, Riva's medieval castle and fortress.

It has a history going back to the year 1124 CE when the citizens of Riva were granted the right to build a castle here. Since then it was done up somewhat in the 1500s as a suitable lodging place for any passing Prince Bishops who may have wanted to spend a night or couple of months and in the mid 1800s was totally rearranged inside to turn it into a barracks for the Austro-Hungarian armies.

It is small, but formidable and even moated all the way around. Once the armies had done with it in more recent times it had some more restorative work done, and some of its early medieval structures were found and in 2003 it housed and still houses a museum.

I came over all arty and got the pad and pencil out for half an hour's scribbling. As we sat on a bench to sketch it we listened to a concert of film music coming from inside. If you look in any brochure for Lake Garda you will find a photograph from this viewpoint. It is the one crucial image - like a photograph of Blackpool Tower is crucial to any brochure of Blackpool.

We wern't sure whether it was a free concert or not so we went to have a look. Inside we heard a warning twittering and looked up to see some of the small birds who had shared our food in the cafe had built a nest under the archway. It didn't look as though we could get in!

Looking down the western arm of the moat towards the 30-mile length of Lake Garda with the mountains on the eastern side visible. As Riva sits between mountains on both sides the light goes quickly and early.

We still had a couple of hours of daylight left though and at a lakeside cafe we got re-acquainted with a latte machiatto each - warm milk with a shot of espresso poured in. This was to become our favourite Italian luxury!

Then Miss Franny seemed to want to go window shopping for some reason. She found a Murano glassware shop and went all misty-eyed and wistful. "We have a day at Venice coming up during the week," I said hastily. A few day's reprieve for the wallet then... That night after our evening meal at the hotel we and our fellow travellers on the Leger tour would be going on a speedboat trip after dark on the lake. We were going to call at the first town to the south on the banks of the lake: Limone.

Lake Garda and Northern Italy, 2003 Index

At Salzburg's Hohensalzburg Fortress

Thursday 17 August 2000. At the end of the previous episode we took the funicular railway up from the many squares and churches of Salzburg to the Hohensalzburg fortress.

It's an impressive chunk of masonry and design, far bigger than you would find most castles in the UK to be. In fact inside those formidable walls is an entire village.

It therefore gives an air of both calm beauty and impregnable mass.

It was never taken by force. Even when under siege during the Peasants' Revolt of 1525, with food running out, the defenders coloured their only bull a different shade every day and paraded it around the walls in view of the besiegers below, to convince them there was plenty of food left.

We spotted at least two wells within the confines of the fortress, so presumably water wasn't a problem.

We had gone up there thinking that we might spot a few locations from The Sound of Music, but not so much really. We've already seen that the courtyard seen in the film housing the von Trapp Family Singers competition was down in the city itself...

Just about the only reminder of the film was this. The puppet theatre that had provided the puppets (and no doubt the puppeteers) for the Lonely Goatherd scene. We didn't have time to watch a performance, but I bought a couple of postcards showing some of the puppets. The theatre began in 1913 when friends of sculptor Anton Aicher convinced him to turn his private hobby into public performances. The family by the time of our visit in 2000 had amassed some 2000 puppets.

An underground passage leads you out of the inner fortress to the path leading back down to the city. We had gone up by funicular railway but opted to walk back down.

The way down is steep. Boarding with slats across, like a ship's gangway, are laid down the street to help you keep your footing. In winter it must be almost impossible! The fortress is immensely popular with tourists. After the Schoenbrunn Palace in Vienna it is the most visited tourist attraction in Austria.

We came down and turned to visit the cemetry of the church of St Peter, one of Salzburg's gems. We found these intricate iron crosses set up on short gravestones. We had seen some similar ones in Kitzbühel.

Finally we get back down to the city level and in a grim reminder of the reality that was behind the fluff of The Sound of Music, passing through a small square we read a plaque on a wall that told us that Himmler's Gestapo had made their headquarters there during the war.

Not the best quality photo but in 2000, digital cameras were very new and not capable of the high-quality that we take for granted today. Even then, you would not have dreamed that they would be an add-on to a phone you could carry in your pocket! These are eggs. Blown and painted and displayed in their thousands in a shop that sells nothing else but painted eggs!

When I say in their thousands I'm not joking! Miss Franny restrained herself from buying any but then regretted it for the next couple of years until we visited again. On that as yet future trip she would be known for the rest of the week to the coach drivers as The Egg Lady...

It was getting time to return to the coach station. Just time to look at the river - well alright, so we got lost and found ourselves at the river... Anyway we had a look at the river, a look at the map and found we were not so far off track after all!

No need to catch a trolleybus then! Not been on one of those since the 1950s in Manchester...! And they weren't bendy in the middle then!

We got back to the hotel, had our evening meal and decided (gluttons for punishment that we are) to have another bash at walking into Zell-am-See after our meal. Tomorrow night, after all, will be our last night so we would be spending it packing and having a last night with our fellow passengers. So it was tonight or never.

This time we made it all the way! Well, perhaps we did catch the little train seen a few times previously... Asking for a ticket in an unknown language is quite something - especially on the return journey where we wanted to get off at Kitzteinhornstrasse...!!! Actually I must have done ok because the driver/conductor launched into a long spiel which I just about gathered was advice on buying a weekly ticket to save money. "Ja, danke, but wir ist der trundlink homevards zer day after morgen"...

You might have guessed how the weather changed once we got there... Ah, lovely.... lightning show over the lake anyone? We sheltered from the light rain to give it time to get really hard again, then dashed for the station, getting wet at the level crossing, waiting for a mainline train to go through then again after the train ride as we walked back to the hotel. "Been out taking pictures of the rain again?" came a cheerful voice...

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A Day in Salzburg

Thursday 14 August 2003. Today is a highlight as we are off on the coach to visit the city of Salzburg.

We take the funicular train up to the castle and sit in a cafe with a drink, trying to avoid a few wasps that are hovering about and enjoying the view. Well, they are as entitled to it as we are I suppose... This is the city of Mozart's birth. He used to play one of the five organs in the cathdral which dominates the the right hand side of this photo. There are just the odd one or two other churches nearby. When the bells start to chime it's a mesmerising sound.

Our viewpoint for both this and the previous photograph is the famous Hohensalzburg castle. Easily recognisable, especially for any fans of The Sound of Music. The river is the Salzach, 227 kilometres long (141 miles), it rises somewhere near the Krimml Falls and flows into the River Inn, seen in Innsbruck earlier in the week. The Inn then flows into the Danube which flows eastwards before turning south through Hungary and east again through Serbia then forming the border between Bulgaria and Romania before entering the Black Sea.

Entry to the castle is by admission price and the easiest way to get there (and pay for inclusive tickets for both ascent, entry and descent) is via the funicular railway. The website states: Dogs are welcome in the outdoor areas of the fortress when kept on a leash. Dogs are not allowed indoors. The wearing of a muzzle is obligatory in the funicular. I'm hoping that the wearing of a muzzle just applies to the dogs...

Many visitors are surprised that, despite all the memorials, statues etc. to Mozart, you will find very little in the way of reminders of the von Trapps or the film in Salzburg. The Austrians have a somewhat different interpretation of events than the film portrays.

Inside the cathedral. Four of the organs are placed against the pillars of the crossing. The fifth - the largest - is at the back of the nave.

The inside of the dome. To get the perspective right for viewers who will be craning their necks backwards the figures have to painted probably twice their usual height but incredibly thin. Sort of how I draw figures all the time without meaning to...

The shopping streets of Salzburg have ornate ironwork hanging signs. We are heading towards Miss Franny's favourite Salzburg shopping experience...

The egg shop! Filled from floor to ceiling with blown and painted eggs with every conceivable design from portraits of Mozart through views of Salzburg to Christmas designs. We did a winter trip in 2002 and the coach drivers christened her the Egg Lady and for the rest of that week a broad Sottish accent hailed her every time she got on the coach: "Hey aigg lady! Don't be bringing any more aiggs on ma cooach unless ye've got bacon as waell!"

Return to Austrian Tyrol 2003 Index

UK Castles Index

A collection of articles on castles and fortresses to be found in the UK. The building of fortresses in England mainly started with earthworks, now known as hillforts. These featured on their own index page (in due course!) so the castles featured here date exclusively from the Norman Conquest of 1066 and later.

Each article can be accessed by clicking or tapping the photographs below. A link at the end of each article will bring you back to this index page.

Brougham Castle, Cumbria

Brougham Castle ruins lie around two miles south east of Penrith, next to the River Eamont. The photographs were taken during a visit in 1997 and therefore may not reflect the current physical state of the castle. Likewise, the text may describe access to places not accessible presently due to deterioration and health and safety considerations.

Brougham Castle was one of the strongholds of the north of England against invasion by the Scots. It was built adjacent to the earthworks of the Roman fort Brocavum, seen here and below.

These earthworks, presumably more impressive at the time the castle was built, would have provided a ready made bailey for the Norman castle. A causeway was built from the fort across the castle moat and this would have been the original entrance.

The ditches of the Roman fort may have been re-cut at the time the castle was built. The Roman fort itself covers 4 acres and would have housed around 1000 Auxiliaries (troops recruited from Rome's empire rather than Romans) plus at least a detachment of cavalry. It guarded the river crossing and junction of the road into western Scotland with the trunk road through the Eden Valley and thus over the Pennines to York (Eboracum). A further local road climbed over High Street to Ambleside (Galava).

The castle in its earliest form was built by Robert de Vipont (c1203-1228) who built the massive keep and later a large rectangular building (afterwards containing the great chamber) to the east of the keep. Brougham Castle is not mentioned in written records until after de Vipont's death in 1228 upon which the castle passed to the Clifford family along with Brough Castle a little closer to Penrith. They were not the only defensive castles in the area. William II had built Appelby Castle to guard the Eden Valley following his taking Carlisle and north Cumbria from the Scots in 1092.

A detailed record, written at the time of the Scottish invasion of 1173-74 tells how William the Lion, captured Appelby easily - suspiciously so - and then went on to take Brough Castle with some difficulty. Once peace was declared Henry II, suspecting the aged constable of Appelby, Gospatric, of sympathy towards the Scots, fined him 500 marks. A mark was a unit of weight and roughly equal to two thirds of a pound. The highest coin denomination at that time would be a penny, 240 of which made a pound. 500 marks (or around 340 pounds) in 1174 would be a fortune. It is fraught with difficulty to try for an exact figure. In terms of simple wealth it would work out at somewhere between 320,000 pounds to half a million. In terms of paying for labour, given the low wages of the time, it would be worth over five million pounds in terms of paying for the same labour today.

The earlier inner gatehouse had a private staircase from the lord's room on the first floor to the river bank where he could get away or enter unseen by the second, more secret postern door. There was no ground-floor access to this staircase, but its exit was protected by an arrow slit in a small chamber approached by this passage within the thickness of the wall from the inner gatehall. Indeed this route to the arrow slit (plus a second window to the courtyard between the gatehouses which is visible here) is the only function of this passage. The photograph was taken near to the staircase entrance to the passage and it then turns to the left and again back on itself to overlook the postern door. It has two steps just before the right-angle turn to the left and the window ahead. I wonder how many toes have been stubbed against those steps...

The Tower of League sat between a new domestic range of buildings including lodgings and a chapel and a service range along the western edge of the curtain wall. The tower has four storeys, each having a fireplace and most also having latrines. This is akin to luxury for the period. The tower was built so as to jut out of the corner of the curtain wall and thus commands the ditches both south and west. No trace survives of the service range which occupied the site of the foreground in this photograph.

The range to the east of the Tower of League was built to house any extra troops whose presence was necessitated by political urgencies with the Scots which occurred from time to time. The siting of the range kept such troops away from both the Clifford family, who lived in the keep and also away from the main gatehouses which were manned by Clifford family retainers. The range included a chapel and kitchen, both in upper storeys and a courtyard which would have been the original entrance from the Roman fort.

Traces of medieval plaster still adhere to the walls in this range, as seen here, though the range is largely in ruins.

The main castle well can still be seen in the great courtyard, and is situated between the lodgings range and the Tower of League. This second well is in the small courtyard which would have been the original entrance to the castle, opening from the causeway from the Roman fort. A good water supply was essential to castles in the event of a siege.

Attached to the keep originally by Robert de Vipont was a great chamber, where the family could dine in private. Now in ruins but for foundations, it was built on the eastern side of the keep. The great chamber is not to be confused with a castle's great hall, where the entire household could dine together.

The massive keep dominates the castle from all directions. The entrance is on the same side as the entrance to the outer gatehouse. If enemies managed to get through the dual defences of the outer and inner gatehouse, they then had to get around three sides of the keep in order to reach the entrance, all the while being bombarded by missiles from above. Note the crack down the southern face of the keep.

In the previous photograph it can be seen that part of an upper storey is set out from the main surface of the wall, and at the western (left) edge the projection rests on two stone corbels. These are shown in detail here. It is still possible to climb to the top of the keep, via a spiral staircase and wall passages.

In the roof of a passage in the keep is a reminder of the Roman fort. Part of a tombstone has been used in the ceiling. A notice reads: The Latin may be translated: "To the spirits of the departed; Tittus M [...] lived 32 years more or less. M [...], his brother, set up this inscription."

The Tower of League and Castle Well from the Keep. After Robert Clifford's death at Bannockburn the Clifford fortunes were eclipsed and it was his grandson Roger who restored the family prestige and made Brougham Castle once more an effective Border defence. Born in 1333, Roger bore arms as an esquire in Flanders a fortnight before his twelfth birthday and joined several expeditions against the French thereafter. But his main battles were against the Scots. He built the more convenient range of buildings against the east and south curtain walls, all on the first floor and comprising great hall, kitchen and chapel. He also made a covered way from the hall porch to the ground floor of the keep. An inscribed stone above the main entrance to the castle reads: Thys made Roger.

The small private chapel, or oratory, can still be seen on the top floor of the keep. As can be seen from the extreme right, the main flooring of the keep has worn away and been lost, and the keep is open inside from the ground floor to the sky above. The frame of a structure to the extreme right is a fireplace in the opposite corner of the keep. Looking at the right hand side of the pillar there is a fragment of carving in the corner facing us. If you look carefully at the right hand support where the arched hood (presumably of a sedilla - a priest's chair) comes down, about one quarter of the way up from the bottom of the photo there are three designs carved. The middle one, a scallop shell, can still be made out.

The remains of a piscina - washing bowl for the Communion cup.

The same fireplace as seen before is in the background but the focus is on an almost totally worn piece of carving with recent names carved with a quality that seems to rule out mere graffiti - G Bailey, an almost vanished T Wi... Wilson or Williams? and finally at the bottom J Crosby and the date 1863.

The roof of the oratory has a single boss where the vaults of the roof meet. It has a carved head and face.

Another wall passage. Brougham Castle was host to King James I in 1617 and later, Charles I in 1629. It badly deteriorated during the Civil War however, being much restored by Lady Anne, the last of the Cliffords, who died in the castle in 1676. Ownership passed to the Earls of Thanet.

The inside of the Keep. The castle was partly demolished in 1691. In the 20th century the castle was given over to the Office of Works who repaired it and opened it to the public. Since 1984 it has been in the care of English Heritage.

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