Mum and Dad’s Golden Wedding Anniversary

Yesterday my parents had a party to celebrate their Golden Wedding Anniversary. It was held at Walton Hall. Here is a short film I made of the the occasion.

Sandal Castle Renovation 2019

First Posted at Wakefield Vistas.

The following film takes a look at the renovation work being carried out on the nationally important historic monument, Sandal Castle. The film also gives a brief outline of the various components that make up what remains of the castle. Hopefully, this will help people create a picture in their minds of what it used to be like in its heyday.

Transcript:

Excluding archaeological excavations, the last major work on Sandal Castle was ordered by Richard III in 1483, only a couple of years before he fell at the Battle of Bosworth.

This year, work on the castle has resumed, this time on the stonework of its ruins. This work represents Phase 2 of the local authority’s £700,000 renovation project on this historic monument.

I thought I’d make this short video to document the work as it is been carried out, while at the same time describing the various features of the castle.

Sandal Castle is an example of a motte and bailey castle, a style of castle building introduced to England following the Norman conquest.

The Bailey component of the castle is simply its courtyard containing a variety of buildings. Sandal’s bailey can be seen here on the flat area containing the two upright ruins. We’ll now take a look at these. These were the castle’s Presence Chamber and Great Hall. The presence chamber was like a throne room where the lord of the castle would receive visitors. The Great Hall was the main living and dining area. As you can see the scaffolding is up, ready for renovation work to begin. However, it looks like the renewal of the stonework on this part of the castle is still to be stared. Other buildings that once stood on the Bailey included the kitchen, larder and bake house.

The backs of all these buildings formed part of the castle’s outer wall. The wall that joined these buildings to the to the castle’s main keep to seal the castle from the outside was called the Curtain Wall. Here we can see it from another angle. And up ahead is part of the curtain wall that joined the keep from the other side of the bailey.

The next part of the castle’s structure surrounded by scaffolding is the barbican. Here you can see where the renewal of the stonework has already started. The white area is where the lime mortar has been replaced. The barbican was connected to the bailey via a drawbridge that can be seen here. There was a second drawbridge that joined the outer barbican, that we’ve been looking at, to the inner barbican that’s in front of us now. The Inner barbican led up to the keep.

The keep was a fortified tower at the core of the castle, and this acted as the castle’s final defensive refuge. The second key component of the motte and bailey castle is of course the motte. This is the mound into which the keep is built and is clearly represented at Sandal. Here are some views of the stonework at the top of the keep ruin.

The final feature that were going to look out is the gatehouse. This is the location of the drawbridge that connected the castle to the outside world. The bright white colour of the lime mortar indicates that quite a lot of repair work has been done to this part of the castle during the current renovation efforts. I’m looking forward to seeing the rest of the castle gleaming like this when the renovation project is complete.

The Green Oak Morris Men At the New Inn, Walton – 5 June 2019

First posted at Waterton’s Walton.

The Green Oak Morris Men, perfomed at The New Inn, Walton  creating a quintessential English village scene on 5 June 2019. While this style of Morris Dancing is more evocative of areas like Oxfordshire it was still great to see English tradition being celebrated in this art form. The ‘proper’ Yorkshire take on the Morris variant is sword dancing, which I believe is also practiced by the Green Oak Morris Men.

Some people speculate that Morris Dancing developed from ancient fertility rites, though the first historical reference in England was in 1448.