Portchester

As previously mentioned my stay in Southampton was occasioned by the money from the house sale STILL not being in my bank account, and the subsequent failure to book expensive tickets on the ferry to the Isle of Wight. I therefore had to find other, cheaper pleasures. They presented themselves in a property of English Heritage called Portchester Castle, and what a gem that turned out to be! Roman wall, huge, multi-leveled keep and lots of sweet, sweet history!

The castle started life, as so many of these buildings did, as a Roman fort. Possibly built to defend against Saxon piracy, the area has also been important for the actual Roman invasion in AD 43, and the Portchester area has been an important harbor for centuries until silt began to clog it (again, like lots of other previously top harbors). Portchester Castle is now considered the best preserved Roman fortification north of the Alps, something of which I had no idea until I actually got there.

The audio guide was again a must and was presented by two "ghosts", one of whom was a frog Frenchman. This presented some comic relief as they told the history of the castle from Roman times, up through various Normanic and French invasions, and finally the Napoleonic Wars, in which the castle served as a prison for thousands of frogs French.

All Portchester pics here.

The keep.


Impressive building.


"You want us to attack and destroy THAT? Fuck that for a game o' soldiers."


A moat! A proper moat! REAL castles need a moat, just sayin'.


I noticed that lots of children were playing on the water's edge by the moat. That water is stagnant, kids. It is a cesspool of putrid, infectious disease and you're dipping your hands and feet into it. Yeah, be sure to get your whole hand in there, muahahahahahaaaa!


The bridge over the inner moat lead to the current ticket office. As I was about to step onto it I heard the ominous cooing of pigeons. They seemed to be saying 'Come on pal, we can shit on your head faster than you can say "flea ridden rats with wings"'.


The Roman walls - up to ten feet thick in places - ran around the whole castle area. Excavations and modern gadget shtuff has found evidence of further Roman settlements outside the walls.


Great view from the top of the keep. I've done some serious climbing this past week.


This crack, which ran the whole height of the keep made me hope that current British engineering has mastered the task of assessing risk. Then I thought of the one British engineer I know (hi Stef!), and began to cry.


During the Napoleonic wars, several levels of wooden floors were inserted into the mighty keep to fit in all the prisoners.


King Richard II spent so much money on building and refurbishing at Portchester that he had to raise taxes on the nobility to finance it all. So they turned against him, and his cousin Henry Bollingbrooke came to power as Henry IV instead, while poor Dickey died. Today, this is all that remains of Richard's once great hall.


The remains of a Roman guarded entrance in the wall. Beyond is the sea.