Cast your mind back

I promised you some more images from last weekend's sojourn in Norfolk, so here's a post focused on two early Medieval structures -- starting with Castle Rising.

This is a beautifully-preserved Norman keep, the core of it dating from the 1100s, with a few 9but relatively few) later additions.

It's a perfect size for childish imaginings, starting with these glorious stairs up to the main door:

The main doorway at ground floor level seems modest yet solid.

Inside there are strange Medieval creatures whose original function was practical as well as decorative:

But purely decorative Medieval sculptures are also very much in evidence:

This beautiful castle is sufficiently modest in scope to make it imaginable as a living space.

Though I suspect it would be tricky to heat in winter.

Not so far from Castle Rising is Castle Acre:

We're going from the ridiculous to the sublime, since Castle Acre is the seat of a priory (as well as a castle, though that is now little more than a few bumps in the earth):

Castle Acre Priory was a Cluniac foundation, which means it was rather bigger than we would usually think of for a priory. It was in scale a fully-fledged abbey, although as Cluniac monasteries were all designated subsidiary houses of the mother-ship in France, it is properly described as a priory (doncha love Catholicism's insistence on precisely-defined hierarchies?).

Castle Acre priory is mostly ruinous, though the Prior's lodgings are well-preserved and his parlour offers a rather fine view of the main facade of the church:

That facade is well-preserved to about half its height, a glorious forest of blank Romanesque arcading.

Outside, the course of a stream which fed the kitchens and, in the distance, the lavvies, is well defined and lush:

Enough of that. My imagination runs riot in places such as that, fed by memories of other instutitons (this is Thoronet in France, a spare and beautiful Benedictine foundation):

If I were unfortunate enough to have lived during those times, I'd have wanted to be living this sort of life.

PS: A kind reader who is much cleverer than me has taken the first photo in this post, corrected the perspective and then tweaked the colours:

I don't know why I even try to take photos -- you people are much, much better at it than me! My thanks to my kind and generous reader.