Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Mountfitchet Castle and Medieval Village

We had a wonderful time visiting Alex, our dear DIL and baby J. We arrived home last night around 5:00 after a very, very smooth trip from London Heathrow airport. Our flight from London left at 10:40 AM and we arrived in Chicago a little after 1:00 local time. Both of our flights left early and arrived early, and were very pleasant. We had rows of seats to ourselves both flights just like on the way over.  It was so hard to leave. We spent a lot of time not only with the baby, but also Alex and Our DIL. I have to say she’s a perfect baby. She rarely fusses and when she does you know if she needs a diaper change or is hungry.

We went on a few day trips. I’ve already shared with you the London Eye and the one I’ll share with you today is Mountfitchet Castle. There are a lot of pictures so I hope it doesn’t bore you too much.

The following is an excerpt off of their webpage. 

“ Mountfitchet Castle and Norman Village is dated from 1066. It’s an open air museum where the visitor can travel back in time over 900 years and witness life in a midieval Motte and Bailey Castle. You can hand feed the tame deer and other rescued animals that run freely throughout the 10 acre site. It’s located in Stansted, Essex in the UK, near Stansted airport.”

This is the outside of the Grand Hall. Not very grand is it? But I suppose it was at the time, well over 900 years ago!

This was the entrance to the area where the Grand Hall is located. The outside of the Castle itself had a dry moat system, which I had never heard of before.

On the left in this picture is a foot and arm stock. If this castle and attached village is any indication of the horrors that met people in life back then, I’m sure glad I wasn’t alive! They had crazy, awful ways of torturing people and this village was full of replicas of them.



They had the grand hall set up in this fashion. The Lord of the castle is in the big chair on the other people gathered around him. In the back was the armory room where several different paranormal shows have filmed and claimed to see and record ghosts. The Lord’s bedroom was upstairs above the armory room.

Dennis had put Alex in the leg stocks and he was begging for mercy!πŸ˜‚

Just a few of the buildings around the village. It’s hard to imagine that people actually lived the way these people lived. No wonder nine out of 10 children died before the age of six months.

There were all kinds of free ranging animals around the village. We bought a bag of feed and so I had lots of friends as I made my way around! The animals are all rescued from various shelters or farms. They are all believed to be actual breeds of animals that lived in the village back in the 1000’s. There were several male peacocks and about 10 peahens also. The males were “strutting their stuff” so to speak and had their tails on display a lot. However we were unable to catch a good picture of them.



This was called the “Hell Hole” where they put live people inside and just left them to die. Rats and other vermin crawled all over them and there was nothing they could do. The hole was about 5 feet deep and 4 feet wide and about 5 feet long. They had so many torture devices in this village that it actually got to be a bit depressing.

Here is a photo of one of the peacocks, but we weren’t able to capture the colors on his feathers very well. The rattling noise the hollow feathers make when he shakes them is quite loud.

We had a wonderful time, but the last week we were there Alex had some kind of a sinus thing going on. I managed to catch it and came home yesterday with no voice. We did have our pre-travel Covid test and it’s not Covid. I guess people do still have regular colds don’t they?

I have another day trip to share and then I’ll be back to regular programming. πŸ’œπŸ˜

Please take care and stay well.

Blessings,
Betsy

18 comments:

  1. The joy of the Lord is my strength too! πŸ˜„

    This place looks so much like a movie I saw once. It starred Heath Ledger. I wonder if they filmed it there. A Knight's Tale. Also starred Paul Bettany.

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  2. I hope you feel better soon! Bill caught that bug just as we arrived at our daughter's in Georgia! Beautiful pics of the long-ago England, too!

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  3. Sorry to hear you are not feeling well, you will be in my prayers for healing. So glad you arrived home safe and had a good flight. Looks like an great day albeit a little depressing with all those torture tools. Love to Dennis.

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  4. I would have liked this, being a history lover. Cute pic of Alex! Would not have enjoyed living there though at that time in history! It is pretty awful the horrific things humans have done to other humans. Glad to hear your trip went so well 😁
    Peace,
    Aimee

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  5. What an interesting place to visit. I can't imagine the horror of being put in the hell hole. YIKES.

    Isn't it funny the noise the peacock feathers make? We had a town nearby us in Orlando that had dozens of peacocks. Spring was always fun to see them strut their stuff.

    Welcome home. Hope you are feeling better soon.

    (Steve and I were both sick a few weeks ago. We were SURE it was Covid, but our tests kept saying it was not.)

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  6. I am so sorry you are ill! We are passing a cold around my house this week, too. I am not too bad, but poor husband is miserable. He has the same cough as the two year old. What an interesting place! I agree with you - people were very cruel in those times and my heart breaks for all the suffering. We are blest to live when we do, even if we don't think so all the time.
    I bet it was so hard to leave that precious baby girl! She truly is a gift from God!

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  7. Welcome home! So glad you are home safely, though I bet it was difficult to leave your son, DIL and newest grandbaby. That looks like an interesting place to visit, but the Hell Hole - YIKES!!!

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  8. What a great trip! Sorry you came home under the weather. I hope you are feeling better soon.

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  9. Saying Good byes is always so hard. I hope you get to feeling better soon. There is a little song that goes "The Jo oy of the Lord is my strength, aha ha ha, the Jo oy of the Lord is my strength"......Have you heard of it. Nancy
    .

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    1. Yes! I’ve sung it often. Alex is starting to feel better so I’m sure I will soon be on the mend too.
      Blessings and love,
      Betsy

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  10. Welcome home! So glad you had such a good visit and travelled safely to and from. I'm with you and feel grateful that I didn't live in Medieval times! They were certainly brutal! I hope your cold doesn't last and you feel better very soon!

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  11. That looked like an interesting place to visit but certainly not to live in at the time it was built. Sorry you caught a sinus bug; hopefully it passes quickly.

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  12. how fun! I love all the free range animals!

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  13. Welcome home! Thanks for sharing photos of some of your adventures. Hopefully, you’ll be feeling better soon.

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  14. Betsy, I'm glad you and Dennis had a wonderful time with Alex and family. Sorry you lost your voice. Did fly too high in the sky? Ha! πŸ˜ƒ πŸ˜† I hope you and Alex feel better soon. There's always different strains of viruses. Thanks for sharing the day trip. Interesting story. London has some interesting to visit. I had a not too fun Mother's Day but everything was OK at end of day. Have a good night's 😴 God bless! Becky L
    grandmabeckyl.blogspot.com

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  15. Thank you so much for sharing your trip as I will probably never make it over there. Glad your flights were pleasant and that you got to spend so much time with your son, DIL, and grandchild! I hope you feel better.

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  16. We watched many Viking movies last winter and it is all very much like your photos. I hope you feel better soon! So glad you had a wonderful trip and enjoyed that grand baby. What a wonderful gift to to be part of her early days:)

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  17. Oh what a fun adventure you all had. Thank you for sharing all your photos and adventures with us sweet friend. Sending prayers for a speedy recovery. Hope you feel better soon. ((hugs)). Blessings always. :)

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