The Judges' Lodging
Presteigne is an odd place to get to - comparing notes in the car park on arrival, I'm not sure any of us drove the same route from Fownhope! Still it makes for varied journeys and opportunities for going a different way home.
A short walk brought us first to the corner by Radnor House with its "Arts & Crafts" painted plasterwork, and then to Broad Street - our goal was halfway down on the right and I was intrigued to see a "blue plaque" on the Red House, part way down, showing that Admiral Puget, after whom Puget's Sound was named, lived here at the beginning of the 19th century.
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| Radnor House facade was given a makeover in the 1890s, in Arts & Crafts style. There's likely to be an older facade behind |
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| Detail of the decoration on Radnor House |
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| Blue plaque on a Red House |
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| The Red House in Broad Street, Presteigne |
A shame about the cars, but this street is nonetheless lined with attractive buildings.
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| Looking up Broad Street, with the Judges' Lodging, Shire Hall and Red House on the left hand sice |
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| Looking down Broad Street |
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| Meeting up outside the Judges' Lodging - Beryl, Jan, Harriet and Chris |
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When we had all arrived we were given an introductory talk - his first attempt at this it turned out - before being let loose with guide books and walkmans to explore the ground and first floors and the basement of the building
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| An introductory chat - Beryl, Chris, Pam and Harriet |
The assizes used to be held in Rhayader but that was "Indian country" backalong, and after a judge was murdered in the 1530s, the court was shifted to Presteigne in 1542 (which was presumably closer to civilisation ;) )
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| Stairs to the first floor with impressive matching carpet and wallpaper |
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| The table set for dinner |
Heading down into the basement we found what was, to me, one of the most fascinating parts of the house, the huge kitchen, complete with enormous dresser, range, massive table etc. All lit by oil lamps and gas flares (predated mantles) so a bit of a paraffin niff, but very atmospheric
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| The kitchen - I particularly liked seeing the meat hastener complete with bottle jack, on the left as I'd been fascinated by an illustration of this in my Uncle Jack's cookery book. He was a chef at the Royal Clarence in Exeter some 80 or so years ago, and his "Bible" was not Mrs Beeton but a 1909 edition of Hermann Senn's "New Century Cookery Book" . |
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| Pinnies hung in a neat row |
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| A dresser took up the whole of one wall |
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| This cooking range was previoiusly hidden behind a more modern stove. |
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| The kitchen |
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| Staircase up from the holding cells |
From the kitchen we found our way past holding cells and a privy, onto some stairs which led us up into the dock in the court room! A clever recording of a trial, with microphones playing the different voices placed in appropriate positions about the room.
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| Three enormous windows at either end light the court room |
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| Some of the glass in the court room windows is beautifully rippled |
We went our separate ways for lunch - there were various places in the town but, as we had Libby the dog with us we found a nice quiet lane where we could park and she could potter around while we ate our rolls
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| Belinda the Romahome in a pleasant dead-end lane near Stapleton - just right for Libby! |
Stapleton Castle
After lunch we met up again, just back across the River Lugg into England, at Stapleton for a guided tour of the privately owned castle by the owner.
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| None of your manicured English Heritage sites here - a field with sheep, nettles and thistles! |
The castle is on a prominent hill above the hamlet of Stapleton but unfortunately the geology is a bit of a mystery as this "sheet" hasn't been mapped at a sufficiently large scale. The best that the BGS can come up with is that it is from the Pridoli Epoch at the end of the Silurian - a mix of mudstone, siltstone and sandstone. Apparently there's a quarry on the far side of the hill, so need to have a look sometime!
Our guide led us up the hill, pausing to explain features as we climbed: the castle itself no longer exists, although the motte and bailey are visible. The castle became superfluous after Glendwr's rebellion at the beginning of the 15th century and was slighted in 1645 during the Civil War, the stone being sold off or used to do some rebuilding or adaptation as it was still lived in.
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| On our way up the hill. You can just see the houses in the hamlet peeping through the trees. |
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| We could see where the towers of the gateway had been, and also the track of the roadway up to the castle entrance |
Heading around to the far side of the ruins we found there was a deep ditch separating steep banks, although these would have been much steeper and deeper when they were there for active defence of the castle.
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| Wildlife diversion - a Red Admiral. One of the group also checked out a sheet of corrugated iron for grass snakes, but there were none in residence! |
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| The steep side of the motte on the left and the remnants of a ditch below it |
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| :Looking up to the ruins, the scree on the side of the motte is from a recent wall collapse |
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| A drawing of the castle before it became so ruinous |
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| Our guide explained the relationship between the visible ruins, and the old drawing |
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| A remnant of the NE corner - windows were filled in, not to escape Window Tax but to make the room more suitable for use as a larder! |
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| Closer view of the filled in windows. The stonework is a mix of well cemented, hard sandstone for the quoins and less competent sandy siltstone for the bulk of the walls. Window arches are of brick |
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| The rooms at the SE end originally had large windows but these were later narrowed, perhaps to make them more structurally sound. Some of the stonework is in a very precarious state! |
An existing plan shows the house had an H-shaped floor plan
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| I particularly liked this chimney: the first floor level shows clearly, and also the way that the two fireplaces (one on each floor) were lined with brick |
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| A geological aside: the Lugg valley here is pancake flat, explained by a map we found in the Judeges' Lodging (below) |
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| This map shows the lake which would have occupied the Lugg valley at the end of the last glacial: lake sediments have built up to produce a flat lake bed. |
We returned via the mill pond - originally fish ponds, then an ornamental pool, then a mill pond and now the silt dredged from it has helped to make the lovely garden more fertile!
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| The header pond for the mill |
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| Tea and cake before a wander around the garden, and a raid on the plant stall! |
Many thanks to the organisers, and to our guides at both venues!
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