21June2008: Day 27: Stop & Smell the Roses

The pictures are from one of the two castles we visited today. The first castle, Walmer Castle, on the east coast (near Dover Castle from last week,) also had grounds with a lot of different plants, trees, and flowers growing. Makenna notices flowers whether in pictures or for real and always makes a scrunched up nose face as she sniffs. So we thought it would be nice to actually catch her smelling a real flower and especially these huge roses that they had on the grounds.


Walmer castle isn't as "grand" as some of the other castles we've visited but it dates back to the 16th century and is another one of Henry VIII's many castles that he had built. One of the differences with this castle is that it has no high walls for protection. They say this was due to gunpowder being more widely used as a means of attack and therefore having higher walls would've only given attackers more of a target to hit. I think something funny about this castle is that it was built due to threats from Spain but by the time it was finished, the threat was over. So what they did was actually build a house like structure in the castle. So as we were touring it, it was like being in someones house with rooms with windows made from the areas where cannons used to sit within the castle. (A good site to see some better pictures is: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.14948/chosenImageId/1)

Also, interesting was that the Duke of Wellington died at this castle in a chair, which they still have. He was the guy who defeated Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo so he was well known and respected. There were many different types of things that were made of his image such as coins, mugs, busts, etc. But the real interesting thing they had of him was a "death mask". When he died, they actually took some sort material and made a mask of his face. They now have it displayed inside the castle along with all these other types of replicas of him. It was very eerie. They had obviously removed his false teeth as his mouth was sunken in on the mask.

The second castle we went to see was Deal Castle. Again another one of Henry the VIII's castles to defend the coast against Spain and France. It was built in 1539 but really did not come under fire until the Second Civil War in 1648. Again it was built to handle heavy artillery from all sides as it has six semi-circles with an outer wall of the same shape. So to look at it from the top, it looks like a flower.

Nothing else too interesting about this castle, in my opinion, but we did happen upon both castles today in the midst of getting ready for weddings. So Walmer Castle clearly posted that it was closing early due to a wedding, whereas Deal Castle let us walk around in the chaos of them getting ready. They had a huge pig on a spit being roasted, and they were setting up tables outside on one of the turrets where guns used to be (and a replica of a gun is now). They also had a DJ and speakers inside one of the rooms of the castle and more speakers outside. They also had a lot of furniture that I'm pretty sure wasn't around in the time of Henry VIII. Chris said how it looked like someone brought in their furniture from their house. So it took away from the ambiance of a castle in my opinion but it would've just been empty rooms otherwise. It's kind of neat that you can rent out some of these castles for just such an occasion.