4May2009: Day 343: Lulworth & Sherborne Castles

Today we went to two castles along the route home found in Dorset. The first one is called Lulworth Castle which was built between 1606 and 1610. It was first owned and built for Thomas Howard who was the 3rd Duke of Norfolk’s younger son and it eventually became the ancestral home of the Weld family. It was a beautiful castle which was built as a hunting lodge on a “grand scale.” It was well laid out and the interior was modern Victorian style up until a fire in 1929 which gutted the place. The family never was able to rebuild and the place sat as a ruin for 70 years after which English Heritage (a group that holds many of the castles around England) offered to put a new roof on the place and they rebuilt it up a bit inside. The style they are doing now in most restorations is to make the parts that are not old look extremely modern such that it is easy to tell the difference between old and new. The Torre Abby from yesterday was another place like this.

The place was so gutted that really just the shell remained and there wasn’t much in the place that wasn’t just staged there like a museum. It had old washing machines, cookery, an old bed, etc. There was a re-enactment of the English civil war going on and they had many people around the castle and on the grounds dressed in period costumes. They had re-enactments of battles and demonstrations of horse riding. It was interesting.

Makenna saw a bounce house and that was all she could talk about. We told her that if she was good in the castle that she could go on the bounce house. That was just setting her up for failure though, as she was probably tired and immediately fell to pieces in the castle…wouldn’t listen, or walk. We told her if she didn’t walk she would not go in the bounce house and even that didn’t work. She doesn’t realize consequences for her actions yet though she certainly knows when she is misbehaving. When we took her out of the castle and immediately planted her into the cart she realized that she was not going to the bounce house and immediately put on a fit. We tried to push her off quickly as she was screaming pretty well. There was an announcer talking over a loud speaker when we walked out and I think some of Makenna’s screams were amplified nicely.
We went to a chapel that was there. It was actually the first free standing Catholic chapel built in England after the reformation. One of the children of the original owner became a famous cardinal and about 5 of his 15 children became priests, so it was a really religious family. In fact, that was part of the problem. The family was very Catholic and was penalized and suspected of treason and all sorts of bad things because of it, but they never left or quit. It wasn’t anything fancy, but a nice chapel with a dome painted modestly.

Makenna fell asleep while we were in the chapel and stayed asleep while we walked around the “camp” that they had for the re-enactment. There were several guns that went off while she was sleeping, but she didn’t even fidget. She was dead tired. She is still fighting a cold.

We left there and went to a castle a short distance away called Sherborne. It is the ancestral home of the Wingfield Digby family. There were actually two castles on the sight, the Old Castle and the new fortified Manor.

“Sherborne Old Castle” was the home of the Bishop of Salisbury who built it from the time of William the Conqueror. By the time of the reformation it was a large stronghold and fell to the Parliamentarians only after sustained gun fire. They tore the old castle down so that it could never be used as a military stronghold again.

After this it was the home of Sir Walter Raleigh, who originally tried to rebuild the main ancient castle into a grand Elizabethan mansion, but he couldn’t afford it, so he converted the hunting lodge near by (Sherborne Castle) into a large fortified manor. After he conspired against the king he was convicted of treason and executed.

The castle was purchased by the Digby family who added on to the manor and it grew into a large home for them. We toured the rooms which were nice, but not extravagant as other fortified manors were we have seen, but it was certainly large enough. It had many old paintings and furniture of which we couldn’t take any pictures of.

In the cellar area they had some archaeological findings from around Sherborne Old Castle and from this manor. Even ammonites that were found in quarries from the estate were on display.

We walked between the two castles on some really nice grounds that were wooded and it had a nice lake. We stopped to feed some ducks, as usual, but this time there was also baby ducklings. Makenna thought they were funny. The ducks were literally coming up to us and I almost stepped on one. There was also this other type of duck that I have no idea what it is but I've seen pictures in books before.

Makenna was okay at this castle as we were able to take the cart. They were at first saying that we should leave it but we told them we’ve done gone up and down more stairs around this world than they can imagine carrying this cart. They relented.

When we were done, we had to hurry back to the Old Castle where we parked as the gate between the two castles would close at 4:30pm and it would’ve been a really huge walk to get from one to the other walking along the road.

When we made it back to the Old Castle grounds, we let her run around a bit as we knew it was going to be at least a few hours ride in the car to get home. Sure enough we got stuck in traffic with everyone trying to get home from the Bank Holiday weekend. It was especially crowded around Stonehenge as it goes from two lanes into one. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again and again…these people do not know how to merge efficiently.

We stopped at a rest stop along the way and got KFC – chicken bites as usual for Makenna. This made her day. We got home around 9pm and my job of sorting laundry started yet again.