8/13 (Thursday) – Isle of Wight (Carisbrooke Castle, Godshill)

Rainy and drizzly today.  But not enough to keep us inside.  We drove up to Carisbrooke Castle near the center of the island. 

Parts of the walls were in need of repair but overall the entire area was in pretty good shape. 

It was high on a hill with good views of the surrounding towns and countryside (what you could see through the rain).

In its earlier period it was the temporary sanctuary and later prison of King Charles I (the one that was eventually beheaded).  In the 1800's and early 1900's it was the home of Princess Beatrice, the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria, and her family.  Some of the buildings used by her were in good shape, and housed a museum.

Princess Beatrice is responsible for the small but charming garden behind the chapel.

During the summer Carisbrooke hosts various medieval knight events in the tilt yard.  We were there on the day of a melee.  There were four "armies", North, South, East and West, all in different colors.  They marched in and took their places in the four corners of the melee yard.

One gentleman on the Red Team looked much like Hagrid of Harry Potter fame.

The melee consisted of two teams facing off against each other.  Each team had one member with a “crest” (small figurehead/statue) on top of his helmet.  The object of the melee was to be the first team to knock the crest off of the helmet. 

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The melee was overseen by the Melee Marshall, assisted by several others.

Melee Marshall

Various squires and maidens were noted in period costume.

The event was quite spirited with roars of approval from the damp crowd. 

After the melee the musicians that had provided the fanfares for the melee, adjourned to the chapel (St. Nicholas in Castro) for a small concert. 

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The weather was clearing up a bit so we headed off to the small town of Godshill (named because the chapel was on a hill i.e. God’s Hill)...The Church of All Saints, "The Lily Cross Church".

 

We had lunch in a three or four hundred year old pub (they all seem to be that old) and then set off to explore the town. 

Besides the chapel, the town’s main claim fame is a miniature town.  It included scenes of lots of "activities" including a cricket match,...

and a dinosaur dig.

One of the "displays" in the miniature town was a miniature within a miniature within a miniature. 

There were copies of various buildings within the town...

including a miniature of the church we had just visited.

One of the most interesting aspects of the miniature town was the small plantings.  While not technically bonsai plants (because they were planted directly into the soil and could therefore had the potential to get to normal size) they had been painstakingly kept pruned back to sizes appropriate to the little town.

We headed back to our hotel in Shanklin and, since the weather was a bit better, we walked along the cliff top...

to the Shanklin Chine, a heavily vegetated ravine.  It was a lovely damp walk with a small stream and waterfalls.