S is for Shamefully Ignorant!

King John's castle was a stone's throw away, for the whole of my childhood, and most of my Adulthood, and I only discovered the fact in April, at the grand old age of sixty-one! No school trips, no trips with the parents, and not me, having walked various other sections of the Basingstoke canal, had revealed its existence, or whereabouts?

 

Eventually I did notice it on one of the information boards along the canal, whilst on another walk, and determined to go and have a look, and on a balmy, summer's day (in April!), I walked the section down to the Graywell tunnel, and paused to inspect the castle ruin, from whence King John (the Boris of his day) is believed to have set out for Runnymede, to sign the Magna Carta, and begin the slow march to the Western Democracy we were vaguely enjoying, until recently, when it all started to go a bit wobbly! 

 

I took a video of the interior walls, but having rather forgotten how to do videos, it being a while since the last one, I've ended-up with a slide show, that has the video embedded toward the end, but it's all only a couple of minutes, and then all the stills are also below, so it might as well go first.

 

And for those who post all that anti-British shit on Quora; this was built over 800-years ago, 300 years before Columbus, it was a ruin 200 years before the American war of Independence, and yet, here it still is, anchoring any British arrogance in the history of a millennium.

 

These are taken clockwise round the castle, with one view obscured by trees, and it was, being April, a low, bright sun, so I had a few problems, but you get the idea! Originally eight sided, two walls have totally gone.

 

Indeed, what you can see in these photographs, is actually only the flint infill of the walls, all the dressed stone and masonry, inside and out has long-since disappeared, purloined for the buildings of the area, in later centuries - think Churches, farms, inns, bridges &etc! As I dare say, were any usable timbers!

 

Information boards on site.

 

One of the fireplace chimney flues.

 

The smaller holes are for the old floor joist timbers, the larger hole . . . ? Secret treasure nook/safe, larder, alcove for a religious icon, relic or statute perhaps? Cell for prisoners? Armscote? Somewhere for the ghost to hide, so Shaggy and Scooby walk past him, and he can jump-out behind them . . . Yah-yah-yah-yikes!

 

It is only infill, and in time there will be nothing left but a pile of stones.

 

This is actually reversed, it was the only way to get a clean shot! If you sit on the middle bench and move your head about, you can superimpose it on the ruins to resurrect the castle for a moment, albeit as a cutaway!

 

The castle is on the Three Castles Path/Walk/Way, which I naively, but admittedly confusedly, assumed must be either Basingstoke-Odiham-Farnham, or Odiham-Farnham-Guildford, but no, It's Winchester Hall-Odiham-Windsor Great Park & Castle! A 60-mile walk, and the other 'local' castles (orange dots, there's Highclere as well) don't get a look-in! But you can see how they form a line protecting the route to London, along the Downs.

 

For non-British readers, it's pronounced oh-dee-um, unless you're very posh, then you might get away with oh-dee'am!

H is for Heritage Toys and Games

Or; is it Russimco? Can't remember if this has appeared here or over on Moonbase, but it's stuck in Piacsa waiting to be processed, so process it I will! Heritage Shops were (or still are? The town centre units seem to have disappeared during the recession but the airport outlets may still be going?) a chain of very expensive shops selling touristy tat, sometimes of some quality, but always for ridiculous money, hung on various 'hooks' of historical period, art movement or famous events/places.

This being a case in point; an all paper/card version of Battleships, with artwork that can't decide if it's 'pulp' or Jules Verne in style and which cost around £15.99 or something - a fair few years ago. Just wait until it turns up in a charity shop for 99p, I did! To be fair, it's the artwork I bought it for, mixed or not, the ships are Pulp!

There is a similar chain of shops who's name escapes me, who where selling a remake/re-issue of the old Answer Robot game last Christmas, again it was £12.99 or nearabouts and for a single modern copy of the old Johillco plastic robot, it's not worth the investment when it'll turn-up at a car-boot sale soon...