CONISBROUGH PHOTOS: CONISBROUGH CASTLE

CONISBROUGH PHOTOS: CONISBROUGH CASTLE: ONE OF THE BEST PRESERVED KEEPS IN EUROPE Copyright image For nearly a thousand years Conisbrough castle has dominated the local...

CONISBROUGH CASTLE

ONE OF THE BEST PRESERVED KEEPS IN EUROPE

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For nearly a thousand years Conisbrough castle has dominated the local landscape. The keep can literally be seen from miles around and was a reminder to the vanquished Anglo-Saxons that their Norman rulers were here to stay. There was, however, a wooden Saxon fort here long before the arrival of the Normans. It was Alfred the Great who instigated the building of fortified settlements or burhs in an effort to keep marauding Danes at bay. This protective line of forts - Sprotborough, Consbrough, Mexborough - and so on, were maintained by his equally illustrious grandson Athelstan. For many decades the River Don was the boundary between the two rival kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia.

Athelstan was the first real king of England. In 937AD his supremacy was challenged by a hostile coalition of Norseman from Ireland, the Western Isles and the Isle of Man, disgruntled Scots and many Northumbrians who had no liking whatsoever for a southern ruler. In that eventful year 615 longships sailed up the River Humber and brought this impressive host into the heart of Athelstan's domain. In an epic battle that later generations referred to as The Great Battle and that lasted for most of the day, Athelstan proved victorious - but it was touch and go much like the later Battle of Waterloo. The battle was named after a vanished fort called Brunanburh. The historian Michael Wood believes the fort was somewhere in South Yorkshire but no real evidence of the fighting has ever been found. Just think of the  wealth of weaponry and the hosts of skeletons that still remain underground to this day - unable to tell their tale via their own macabre remains.

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Above is one of my favourite images of the castle set against a louring sky. Despite what many people think, there would usually have been only a handful of men patrolling the walls. Soldiers were expensive and unproductive and their armour, weapons and mail cost a fortune, hence only the richest lords could maintain their own mini standing army. It was the castle itself that said it all. The huge keep and the doughty walls spoke of power and with every stone came the implied treat of violence and retribution if the local serfs dared to cause trouble. Well did the later Victorians speak of the Norman yoke - the Anglo-Saxon peasants were little more than beasts of burden to their arrogant masters.

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This close-up photo of the keep shows just how formidable it was, and indeed still is. It has stood for nearly a thousand years and long after the feeble buildings of today have crumbled to dust it will go on standing. The sturdy buttresses are angled at the bottom so that any boiling water or oil poured down onto any unfortunate attacker would splash out and spray as many of them as possible. It should come as no surprise that many medieval castles were never attacked - there was simply no point. The colourful tent in the picture belongs to a band of re-enacters who recreate past times with displays of fighting and by showing replica objects fashioned after originals hundreds of years old. The Good Old Days were anything but and it must have been virtual torture to keep a lookout and stand guard at the top of the keep in the depths of winter. Chain mail is not renowned for the insulation it affords. Even though the Normans have long since vanished from the pages of history, the keep built c. 1180-90 by the order of Hamelin Plantagenet maintains its lonely vigil, a place full of inspiration and the ghosts of the past.

Copyright 2013 John Tarttelin M.A. History

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