An interesting historical diversion for visitors..........

With the Olympics starting shortly, and so many tourists visiting the UK, I thought I would put up some pictures of a little known, and little visited spot nearby. It should be visited far more, particularly by people who are interested in wood fires, and chimneys. Christchurch Castle was built by the Normans, the tower or Keep is seen below:



The remains of the keep, sit on a man made mound and originally would have been the centre of a castle near the River Avon. The castle was destroyed during the Civil War in 1645 . The only other bit of the castle remaining is the chamber block, usually known here as the "Constables house", which was built in the early 1100's. Not only is this a rare example of such a building, it happens to have one of the oldest chimneys in the country:



A better view of the site of the chimney and fireplace area is possible from inside the building. The holes in the wall would have originally been for huge beams to hold the suspended living area in place:



And looking straight up from what would have been the basement area below the fireplace:



A good view of the chimney can be had from the stream, which is part of the River Avon:



And here:



As a historical aside, just upstream from Christchurch on the River Avon is a place called Tyrrells Ford. This is the place that Walter Tyrrell crossed the River Avon, after the incident in the New Forest nearby, where King William the Second was shot by an arrow (presumably his), either deliberately or accidentally. After crossing the river, he rode to the nearby coast, and left for France, never to return.

A lot of history in a small area, and once you have seen it all, it's time for the chance to do that most English of things, take afternoon tea at the local tea rooms.......

Love the pics . . . especially when our country is so "young" and buildings from the 1600s are pretty much unheard of . . .

So cool; these pics really take me back. I've been lucky to have spent time in the countryside several times in England (as well as Scotland, and Ireland)- mostly in the Peaks District. Just the color of the sky reminds me of time there.

Wow Thanks for posting

Very cool pics. thanks for sharing them!

Yep over here if they are 100 years old we tear them down!
Gary

Yup, New England homes from the late 1600's are "new construction" compared to Europe.

Its hard to imagine that any thatch roofs are still around after heating with wood/coal/peat for all those years.

Still a lot of thatched roofs round our way, old thatched houses have preservation orders on them nowadays (unless they burn down, which sometimes happens).........

I have been thinking about the remains of the hearth at the base of the chimney, I reckon it would make a great project to recreate the hearth and chimney somehow.

Possibly in a corner of our garden instead of a firepit.......

there's still a few thatched rooves here in the US of A as well. The Trapp Family Lodge in VT I think still has at least 1 building with thatched roof....they import a gent from the UK to do the upkeep, neat stuff. My fav aspect of old construction is the glass panes that are settling. It's neat to see that glass still acts like a liquid in slow motion at air temp. I also like wrought iron harware and oaken doors with iron knockers. They seem almost resitant to time in a way, like you can almost feel the thousands of times a door has opened and closed, and imagine how different, and similar (at the same time) things are today compared to then. Strange "Time Warp" effect of old doors I guess. Nice pics woodchip, thanks for posting.

The glass settling is a myth. They just couldn't make consistent thickness glass.

If glass settled- those beautiful Egyptian glass pieces would all be quite slumped.

edit: an estimate that I saw calculated that to see the observed thickness change in glass windows due to some settling phenomenon would require time on the order of the age of the universe- and in fact, glass thickness is about as often thicker at the top of panes as the bottom. Speculation is that the idea of glass acting like a liquid is from a mis quote or translation of an old physics book. Glass has a structure like that of a liquid, but though it is non-crystalline, it is in fact frozen.

AWESOME pictures. I am always humbled and awestruck when I see those ancient stone buildings, just imagine having to slave for YEARS to build those structures, to think that the bones of the men who built those buildings have been in the ground for over half a millenia and yet the buildings are still standing to this day. Thanks for sharing those pics!

Yes, and unfortunately, sometimes even far less than 100 years. Great pics. Thanks for sharing

and to think, this was taught to me BEFORE the interweb age....seems mis-information has been popular for some time. Makes sense that it would just be hard to make uniform glass by blowing it into a sphere, flattening it into a cylinder, slicing the cylinder and unrolling it into a sheet....thanks AP.

Great pics! I love stonework, especially old stonework. I hope you enjoy the games, and carry a few jellied eels to keep the more annoying tourists away!