Following the Norman
invasion of 1066, French Knights spread throughout England and built up
strongholds in their adopted Country. One of these knights was William D’Albini
who became very influential - his position as Butler to William the Conqueror’s
son Henry was like that of another powerful Norman enforcer, Tebbitt the Chingford
Polecat.
He built Castle
Rising in West Norfolk and later established the moated Old Buckenham Castle on
Abbey Road, adjacent to the site that would (much) later become a WW2 Bomber
Base. His son, William D’Albini II wanted more and gave this Castle to
Augustine monks to turn into a Monastry ("Let ze monks 'ave it", he shrugged). D’Albini II moved to a new site about
2 miles away where in 1145 he founded New Buckenham Castle, a stone and timber
ringwork surrounded by a massive Bailey earthworks and moat. However, he built
not just a new Castle but a new town to service it, and the unique surviving medieval
street layout of New Buckenham is said to be the only one in England to retain
its original pattern.
New Buckenham Castle
was, like the Gherkin or Shard, built largely as a pure status symbol. By the
time it was finished in 1176 it must have been an imposing sight with its huge circular
keep (probably the earliest and largest of its type in
England).
We’d walked past
this strange earthen structure several times and been intrigued to see the
large cast iron gates padlocked but a little googling revealed that the key is
available for £3 from the owner of the local Garage, which, incidentally, is
home to the largest collection of Reliant Robin three wheelers I’ve ever seen outside of Peckham.
It therefore seemed a
good idea last weekend when we were experiencing a second French invasion in
the form of my brother-in-law from France to go and get the key and show him
what his ancestors had achieved. The Garage/Castle Gatekeeper, who I believe is called John (sadly not Robin) was there to greet us with enthusiasm and merry quip.
After a long discussion on medieval sewerage, heart disease
in teenagers and the reason the population of Italy is so healthy (they shout
a lot and relieve stress apparently), he sent us off with a final word of
warning: “The local archery club are in there practising today and with this
wind you need to keep your eye out for stray arrows”.
This turned out to be another hilarious quip – fortunately!
We opened up the gate and revealed a truly massive internal keep and one can
only marvel at the sheer physical toil which must have been involved to carve
it out of the landscape sans JCB. Our Norman visitor was suitably impressed and we repaired to the Inn on the Green for their excellent Sunday Brunch.
7 comments:
How brilliant! £3 to borrow the key seems like a bargain.
What a lovely find!
Goodness, I lived in Norfolk for most of my life but had never heard of this Norman achievement. Now that I live in France it's too late to visit it. (Can't leave dog, cats, chickens and sick husband)
Liz: 3 quid to have a Castle all to yourself? I suppose the IS a bargain.
Linda: It's not on any signs so it is a bit secret. Perhaps I shouldn't talk about it...
Sablon: Maybe there's an English Castle secretly located dans la ville? What part of Norfolk did you live in?
Oh how exciting...a great history lesson...looking forward to the next post about Reliant Robins...
Now that's what I call an outing.
How ever can your Norman Relly compete when you got to France?
Quips and all.
To answer your question: family moved to Norwich when I was 2 and I've also lived in Costessey, Brooke, Stoke Holy Cross and Shotesham. Retired to France in 2002.
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