24Jan2009: Day 243: Orford & Framlingham Castles

Yes - two more castles under our belt. It's hard to find things that are open this time of year that aren't many hours away. We were able to find these two castles that were near each other and only a couple of hours from the house.

The first one, Orford Castle was built by King Henry II (1154-1189). This castle is different from a lot of castles in its shape. Most are rectangular in plan but this was more cylindrical. This design was to help with the weakness that the rectangular ones have which is that the corners could be undermined and brought down. The outer defence walls are also now missing. There's a lot of earthwork mounds that still remain. The castle only took eight years to build, which was pretty quick, at a cost of over 1413 pounds which was pretty expensive for 12th century standards.

Henry II, we found out, was the one who started the "jury system." A story that was told by the audio guide in the castle was that a bread maker was put on trial as the bread he was selling wasn't at the required weight.

There was a chapel within the castle, instead of outside, which was also different. The area that used to be the constable's chamber had an unusual triangular cut-out in the wall that led to the outside - yup - it was a urinal. I guess this way he didn't have to walk to the garderobe to go. Just a few steps out of his bed and he was there.

What we didn't know was that this castle has an interesting relationship with Framlingham castle. Framlingham Castle was owned by a baron, Hugh Bigod, who fought with the king. Hugh Bigod owned four castles in the area and Henry II wanted to get Hugh under control so he took all four castles from him. He gave Framlingham and another castle back to him later, but thought it would be a good idea to build a castle in the area himself, thus came about Orford.

Orford, in the 15th - 17th century became a home and over time started to fall into disrepair. In the 18th & 19th century people started to again take interest in the castle and were looking to preserve it. So by the 20th century it was turned over to the town Trust of Orford

I thought it was interesting that Framlingham has only its walls and towers left whereas Orford has only it's keep left. Framlingham, like I stated above was owned by a very rich baron. The barons were always fighting and befriending their kings. At this castle, since their was no keep, we basically walked along the walls. There were a lot of chimneys around the wall but most of them were for decoration. This was so that the castle wouldn't look like a defensive castle but more a royal manor.

After much changing of hands over the years, Framlingham came into the hands of the Howards. A Thomas Howard encouraged the marriage between Henry VIII and Anne Bolyen, who was Thomas's niece. When that marriage failed along with another failed marriage of another niece (Catherine Howard) to King Henry VIII, the duke fell from favor. But, another interesting twist is that Mary I, the only surviving child from Henry VIII's marriage to his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, waited at this castle while the succession to the crown was being debated. Her half-brother Edward had just died so I think they were deciding whether Mary or Elizabeth (the child from Henry VIII and Anne Bolyen) was going to be queen. When it was decided that Mary would rule, she issued her first royal commands from Framlingham.

They had a lawn chess set at Framlingham and we asked Makenna if she was the queen. She just enjoyed kicking the pieces - I guess that's queen like. The video at the bottom is of Makenna at the well at Framlingham. It was funny because she heard her echo and would yell down into it. You can hear a bit of her English accent when she says "Hulo."

Makenna, for the most part, was fairly good. Considering both of these places didn't really give us use of the stroller and gave her a lot of leeway to run around. She did give us fits at times but I think the one was because she was hungry and wanted chips but we were being adamant that she had to have some sandwich. She finally relented and agreed to eat the pancake I brought along from this mornings breakfast.

She's at the stage where she repeats her self over and over and over, etc. No matter how many times we reply, she'll still repeat herself. Case in point was tonight on the way home she wanted food. So she kept saying "food?" We kept telling her we were going home to get food. She just kept asking anyways. So finally I said, "Hey, Makenna, want some food?" She said, "okay" and that seemed to keep her quiet for about 10 minutes. When we did get home we cooked some frozen chicken nuggets for her (that have hidden vegetables inside!). She saw daddy eating his chicken (fish really,) and that he was using "sauce" (ketchup). So she wanted some and she actually really liked the ketchup. Unfortunately, part way through we ran out so Chris went to look for some more and came up with BBQ sauce. We put a little on her plate explaining that it was different. She tried it and you could just hear her tongue smacking against the roof of her mouth as she tired to figure out if she liked this new taste or not. She tried a little more and just sat there with a stunned look on her face. Chris started laughing and then Makenna looked at him as if to say, "what's so funny?" She didn't quite like the BBQ sauce and just gave up eating.

We closed the day by reading scriptures which she always enjoys and says "scriptures, scriptures?" over and over. Then she says, "be nice scriptures" as I've had to tell her to be nice to them as she gets a bit rough and she's unfortunately ripped a few pages. In fact, one of the verses I was trying to read tonight was filled in with "something, something" as the piece is missing.