Around Bath

A quick walk around Beckington first.

Then onto Nunney Castle, a medieval castle at Nunney. Built in the late 14th century by Sir John Delamare on the profits of his involvement in the Hundred Years War and remodelled during the late 16th century, Nunney Castle was damaged during the English Civil War and is now ruined. It's such a cute castle.

Market cross in Nunney.

Second stop was the Stoney Littleton Long Barrow, a Neolithic chambered tomb with multiple burial chambers, located near the village of Wellow. It is such fun wandering through green English fields looking for ancient things. They are hardly ever well signposted and Geoff has to employ all his surveying skills to work out possible sites. Nearly always finds them too. Impressive!

Beautiful scenes on all sides. But where is the Barrow? Ah there it is....

 

 

 

So typical of England. Walking back from an Iron Age burrow and we came across a WWII pillbox! It was part of a large number of concrete bunkers known as pillboxes were built as part of the GHQ Line to defend against an expected German invasion

 

Next was Farleigh Hungerford Castle which was begun in the late 14th century and was for 300 years the home of the Hungerford family. Its history is inextricably linked with that of the family, which after distinguished beginnings suffered a series of disasters and scandals – some of which took place within the castle walls. Eventually the castle was sold in 1686 to repay debts, and was then plundered for building materials.

 

A ‘romantic ruin’ since the 1730s, it retains two of its corner towers and parts of its outer courtyard defences. Within the outer court is a well-preserved chapel outstanding for its 13th-century wall-paintings, family monuments and collection of unusual anthropoid (human-shaped) lead coffins.

 

Bradford-on-Avon Tithe Barn is a barn in Bradford-on Avon. It was part of a medieval farmstead belonging to Shaftesbury Abbey, and was built in the early 14th century, with a granary dated to about 1400. A charge of 10% was levied on the landlords who wished to store their farm produce here. In the 1980s, the barn was a filming location for the TV series Robin of Sherwood, doubling as Nottingham Castle's great hall.

 

It originally belonged to the nuns of the Shaftesbury Abbey, which is near by. It was used for storage of tithes, during the Middle Ages.

Bradford Tithe barn measures 51 metres long, spans 10 metres and is divided into fourteen large bays.

The stunning raised cruck roof is divided by massive ‘A’ shaped trusses, braced underneath to form arches. These trusses are joined together lengthwise by purlins which in turn support the rafters and 100 tons of stone roof

We then stumbled across a very old Saxon church in Bradford. St Lawrence's Church is one of relatively few surviving Anglo Saxon churches in England that hasn't been altered or re built.

 

Final stop for the day was to see another Iron Age fort but this time with the lure also of one of the famous white horses.

 

 

The original Iron Age Hillfort defences were built at Bratton Camp over 2000 years ago. These earthworks protected a settlement containing round houses, granaries, stores and workshops. The design and construction showed the effectiveness of the hillfort to its enemies.

The site was excavated in the 18th century. However, three thousand years earlier a Neolithic long barrow existed on this hill, and later excavations in the 19th century uncovered human skeletons and cremations.

The White Horse is beautiful. Overnight in Ogbourne Saint George. What a cool name!