Peterborough, Cambridgeshire.

Yes another post about our travels! After all our exploring of York over a number of days, our next main destination was Dover. It would be quite a long drive so DH checked out what town/village/city might be about halfway between York and Dover.

One place that fitted that geographical requirement just happened to be Peterborough and after that, it was 'a done deal' that we would stop there overnight. It was in Peterborough that DsD1 taught for most of the 2 years she worked in the UK, after graduating from QUT here in Brisbane. So basically we were going to have a sticky beak at the town where she had lived. When her dad sent her a message saying where we were planning on going, her answer was, 'Why would you want to go there?'...hmmm not really a great recommendation by the sound of it! But a few hours later, we received another message from her with some suggestions of some interesting places to explore in and around the town.

When we arrived we had our usual walk around the town ...
The markets...

 We had seen this chain of shops on our travels throughout the UK. As my niece's youngest son is known by the nickname, Wilko, I took this photo to show him later :-)

 Looking across the town square...

DsD1 had also told us about the old bank building which was now a Starbucks...

This lovely old building is now a bank!

Some more modern buildings...note that sign...

DsD1 had told us about the Peterborough Cathedral where Catherine of Aragon is buried. DsD1 had said that the Cathedral was easy to miss, but we found signs easy enough because we were looking out for them.
The Cathedral is in a large precinct of old buildings owned by the church...

These houses are homes of staff in the Cathedral precinct...

We took a couple of photos of the cathedral to try to show the ornate stone work...and the size of this place...

We have no photos of the interior of the cathedral as we chose not to buy a photography licence which would have allowed us to take photos inside the building...but it was magnificent and especially the area inside the building which is Katherine of Aragon's resting place. But on this website, there are some photos which show the magnificence of this building, here.

Our next stop was Stanground College where Miss Meg taught for over a year. It took us a while to find it as the 'sat nav' didn't seem to have a clue! :-) But find it we did, eventually....but it wasn't what we expected...this building seemed too new to be where DsD1 taught in 2009/2010.

So we parked the car and went to investigate...there was no sign of any older buildings...just this rather large building that looked like an office block...

 It was school holidays at the time we were there, but I went up to the gate and pretended to speak into the intercom...

We walked off towards the car but then we noticed a man walking out the gate and getting into a car...we 'caught' him just as he was about to drive off and explained why we were there. He told us his name and said he was the maintenance man at the college. Before he drove off he  told us that the old school buildings had been demolished after the new school was completed recently.
The huge space in front of the new school that had been levelled after the buildings were demolished, was going to become sporting fields ...

Then a young man wearing jeans and teeshirt came out the gate carrying a big pile of folders etc...he had to be a teacher doing work during the holiday break! But no! He was the Principal. We explained why we had been loitering around his school but Gerard Rae had not been on staff when Meg worked there. He told us that the local council had stepped in with funding ( 24 million pounds) for the new school when the UK government pulled out of funding the project.
Photo taken from the school's website; Mr Rae is dressed in his work gear!

And it looks like the results for Stanground College in the Systemic tests have improved quite a bit... Best ever GCSE results! Well done to the school community!

Then it was time to find our accommodation which was a village just outside Peterborough...the countryside we drove through was beautiful...

I got DH to stop so I could take a photo of this cottage...

Soon we arrived at our hotel in Nassington...The Queen's Head.

Views up and down the street from the hotel...

 The shop across the road from the hotel/inn...

What a shame! We would be in France when this was on! lol

We stayed in a lovely room that was probably a stable block when the inn was first built...the back of the inn was beautifully landscaped...

This was one place that we wished we were staying a lot longer; lovely room, beautiful food in the restaurant attached to the inn and an archetypal English Village. 

Castles; Time builds castles, and time destroys them.

The saying in the heading of this post is attributed to being an old Serbian proverb.

Castles...not something you come across much here in Queensland or the rest of Australia for that matter. I've visited the 'castle' at Bli Bli on the Sunshine Coast and the castle like structure at Paronella Park in North Queensland but somehow they were not really awe-inspiring. That's why the UK and European castles are quite popular with Aussie tourists.
I've already written posts about Windsor Castle, the castle at Newcastle and posted a photo of Carnarvon Castle  through the mists when we took a steam train ride out of that city. A Google search suggested that there are over 1500 castle sites in the UK...although admittedly little evidence of some of them remain, just as the Serbian proverb states. I must state here that DH and I did not attempt to find and visit any where near that total! lol

 In this post, I'm going to take you on a quick visit to 3 of the castles that we saw in the UK, including a closer look at Carnarvon Castle. One of these three has not withstood the ravages of time as well as the other 2 as you will see...
Firstly another look at Carnarvon, which is inside the old city wall...

Unfortunately, because we had had a 2 hour train ride, by the time we arrived at the castle, it was only just over half an hour or so until closing time...not worth the entry fee really, so we walked around it and into the town ...

Looking back at the castle from the shops' area...

A building in the town that caught my eye...

The next castle, we encountered in another Welsh town...

Time had not been kind to Llandovery Castle as the next photo will show...originally one of the hundreds of fortifications built by the Norman invaders after 1066, repeated skirmishes saw the castle go back and forth from English to Welsh to English conquerors...falling in to disrepair, it suffered the ultimate indignity when townspeople took stones from its walls to construct homes etc in the town.

The statue in front of the mound where the castle once stood is of a Welshman, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd who led forces to again take the castle from the English in 1282...but it was to be only for a brief time before the English regained this stronghold.

 The statue is quite striking/eerie as it is headless with the helmet sitting atop fresh air.

To be honest, DH and I came across this castle site/ruin quite by accident. We had decided to stop for a coffee and loo visit in this town and the public parking area just happened to be in front of the castle...as this photo from the internet shows...it's also the bus stop area for the town too.

The town was beautiful...all the buildings were so well looked after...

The next castle was in the town of Carlisle which was our stopover 8 days later when we were on the way to Edinburgh...
Again we arrived late in the day, but headed into the town centre...and found a car park almost straight away!

At first we thought we had found the castle in the town centre...

But on closer inspection these were some old city wall gate fortifications dating back to Roman times... so we went off to find some signs which would lead us to the castle...we found a carpark area just near the hill on which the castle stood. It was a lovely spot with a park and a children's playground...

A statue of Queen Victoria...

 
We can see the castle from the carpark...but the entry is a bit of a trek around the corner and up the hill a way...

On the way we spied some 'chairs'...just perfect for a bit of a 'rest'! lol

After trudging up the hill, we are almost at the castle entry!

Again we had arrived at an attraction late in the day, so this was as far as we went...the door was huge, thick, and very old...over 900 years old. Originally a Roman fortress was on this site which was replaced by the castle. The website for Carlisle Castle details what sound like fascinating features of this place.

Before we left the UK to travel to France, DH and I spent a day at Dover Castle and a post on this interesting and historical place is still in the draft stage of writing. Dover Castle is by no means a ruin however...being an important part of Britain's defences during war time.