Raglan Castle

I have driven past this many time and every time said to my wife we should visit sometime. Well that one time came up and we popped along to view the place. Raglan Castle  is looked after by Cadw the Welsh government equivalent of English Heritage and if your a member you can get in at either a reduced rate like we did or free if you have been a member a couple of years. Here are a few photos from our visit.

The entrance and car park, lucky it was a nice day when we visited

Hard to know where to start but going to the entrance here is a good place

Walking round to the left gives you this view of the castle

Going further round gives this view and entrance which is where we went in

This is a panoramic view of the west side of the castle

 Inside you are greeted with this view of the place

 I noticed this carving which I thought looked Greek in stile

Climbing some stairs takes you to an upper floor where you can look down into the castle

Going back to ground level you could see where the floor you were on carried on further. In the walls you could see fireplaces

Going on further brings you to the great hall

 This is the coat of arms at one end

Couple of the windows in the hall looking out to the courtyard

This is the fireplace in the hall, lets say you can stand in this easy

It's hard to show in a photo the size of this window which is called the Oriel Window but if you go back to the photo I took of the Hall you can see on the left hand side at the end, the fireplace is just before it and that is about 6ft high

This was the kitchen area behind the hall

From the hall you can go to the courtyard which is easier to show in this stitched photo, that's a well you see in the foreground

From there I went to the Kitchen which must have been a dark and very hot place considering the number of fireplaces in it

 This is a stitched photo of the kitchen

Back into the courtyard, if you look to the end on the right you can see the Oriel Window from the Hall, this might give you a better idea as to the size.

Juts off the main gate you see at the end of the courtyard you can visit various rooms which have exhibitions in

Some of the cannonballs used on the castle  in the civil war 

This room had a fireplace & a toilet no less (got a little camera shake)

 Back outside to the other end of where I came in

 and time to go up this tower I had seen

Looking down off the bridge at the moat 

This is the other side of the moat

 Looking up at some of the battlements

 The views from the top were worth seeing

 Over the top of the castle

 Or looking back down

 The area here you see my wife walking was for the lady's of court to walk which was covered, the alcoves used to have statues in. My wife read the information on the wall

Still the views over Wales take some beating

 In the distance you can see the hills which I think are the Brecon Beacons

Looking up at the battlements over the gate house

This is looking up towards the place I took the photo downwards to the base I'm stood on

There is always a loo around if you need one or Garderobe as they are known

This is the main gate where the portcullis would have been

The moat and moat walk where ladies of court would have spent time. The alcoves would have at one time held statues

That's the tower I was taking photos from it's called the Hexagon tower

Looks a bit more impressive when you see the moat walk along with it

 I'm off  to that tree now as my wife is waiting there. Hope you enjoyed my tour of this Welsh castle it is well worth taking a picnic and visiting.

Greys Court

Greys court is a Tudor country house which is situated not far from Henley and only up the road from where I live. I had heard of the place but had never visted till now. I went along with my wife one Sunday and was impressed with what I saw. All the photos today are from the outside as we were not allowed to take any photos inside..

  This is a stitch photo of one of the buildings through the arch

 This part was closed of to people for H&S reasons

These are part of the outer walls of the house as it was a defended manor house. The tower I thought was from a church but it was one of the watch towers the hose had

Part of the remaining our walls

I like the way it has been landscaped with flower beds

Nice onamental pond in the tower garden

Which as you can see was full of water lillies

Another view of Greys Court

 Anyway up the tower this way

Looking down on the building sin the stitch photo

Weather vane

The walled gardens

View across the countryside

Another of the house

 Back to earth and after walking round the house you come out by the plaque above

which is on the left here

 You can see a whole load of these little flellows

on top of the wall beside the house

Side view of the house

Nice oriental bridge

 

 The place also has one of the few remaining donkey opperated wheels in the country, hav eto admit it is one big wheel and it is to lif water from a well

Nice deep well to fall in but don't worry it does have a cage over the top

A must for me now is stopping off for a cup of coffee.Glad to say it ws not that busy here when we visited

Well that concluds my tour of Greys Court, hope you enjoyed it. Check out the National Trust Website for more details.