Weekend in a Castle – St Briavels

Posted on 15/02/2015 by Martin L

Cue dragons, art, great scenery, good walking, frost and ice, mists and blazing sunshine, good food and beer, excellent cheer, and an enthusiastic medieval banquet with lively debate spanning the centuries including King Richard III re-found(*), all wrapped up in St Briavels undefeated castle lost up on high in the evening mist…

I think we can all agree that made for a most excellent weekend, all starting with our just desserts! 😉

One to be revisited! Many thanks to Kate for organizing.

( *: Little did the Banquet Master realize our innocuous connections with Leicester, nor the depth of some historic knightly research by Liz connecting some past characters of the castle… 😉 Quite a fun real-life history lesson and engrossing debate! 😛 Note also the modern day trappings that old Richard must now endure: Visit Leicester: Richard III; and King Richard III Visitor Centre; and a week of posthumous pageantry for the Richard III reburial – ‘May you rest in peace in Leicester’, and finally(?) King’s tomb unveiled at Leicester Cathedral. )

Enjoy 🙂

This entry was posted in Past Events, Photos. Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to Weekend in a Castle – St Briavels

  1. Martin L says:
    21/02/2015 at 1:58 pm

    We saw some medieval graffiti from prisoners held at various times in St Briavels. There is yet a lot more widespread graffiti from those days telling a story that is only now being recorded by volunteers:

    Cambridgeshire church plague graffiti reveals ‘heartbreaking’ find

    … The names Cateryn, Jane and Amee Maddyngley and the date were inscribed on stonework in Kingston parish church. It was found by Norfolk and Suffolk Medieval Graffiti Survey volunteers.

    Archaeologist Matt Champion said the project had shown church plague graffiti was “far more common than previously realised”…

    … The Maddyngley graffiti is hidden under limewash near the door in All Saints’ and St Andrew’s church. The family lived in Kingston, seven miles from Cambridge, and were tenant farmers who “rarely turn up in parish records”, he said…

    … The graffiti survey was set up in 2010 and is the first attempt to survey pre-Reformation graffiti in churches since the late 1960s. Volunteers use digital cameras and powerful lamps to reveal previously hidden or faded markings…

    There looks to be a lot of history that is not in our old dusty text books…

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Do you count in Human miles? ;-) *