Conisbrough Castle

I fell in love with castle ruins during my time in the UK (big surprise, right?).  The first I visited was Conisbrough Castle in Doncaster. I drove along a twisty road past smushed-together houses until I came to the bottom of a very green hill, atop which sat my first castle. I feel very possessive of it, can you tell?

The castle was built in the 12th century by the fifth Earl of Surrey. Its keep is one of the finest still standing in Europe. What is a keep, you ask? Well, let me tell you.

 It's a fortified tower in a castle that was used mainly for protection. Conisbrough's keep, for example, could only be entered by drawbridge on the second level. The King and Queen didn't actually live in the tower, but if the castle came under attack, they would retreat there for safety. Wooden fortresses made from other buildings within the castle walls would have been hastily built over the stone structure to help protect the keep from enemy fire. 

It was too dark inside the keep for pictures, but it was stellar. In the 1990s, the floors were restored, so I actually got to walk through all five levels of the tower. There was a main hall where the king could receive and impress important visitors, complete with  grand stone-carved fireplaces. The top floor, where the royal family would have stayed during a prolonged period of hunkering down during battle or the king had private meetings with other leaders, had an elaborate stone chapel that has survived all these years! It was fascinating to see pieces of ancient lives, in stone, in real life. Very surreal. Very cool. 

The walls and foundations were also largely intact. You could see where the prison and the church were located.

 And although you couldn't climb on the walls, you could walk along the parts that still had stairs intact. The view from the top of the hill was pretty.

These girls were having a picnic on the castle grounds. No big deal. Why wouldn't you have a picnic next to the castle?? Awesome.