You learn something everyday

A pillow mound.

I think it is possible to make out this earthwork in the Park at Broughton from these pictures that I took at the weekend. Anyway it is a mound, about 30 feet by 8 feet, (the dog gives it scale).

Pillow mounds are part of the normal agricultural landscape from the middle ages and later. This one may be 16th century.

A pillow mound is for rabbit farming. You build up a false mound for your rabbits to make a warren in, and surround it with a trench. What sort of fence you used to keep the rabbits in I don't know.

This is just one of a number of unusual bumps and ditches in the park, but next time you walk your dog here (which, by the way, you are welcome to do) you'll know what this one is.

Lining the swimming pool

This winter's repair and maintenance work has involved emptying the moat to about a quarter of its normal volume, and tackling the deteriorating inner bank on the north side of the moat either side of the Gatehouse.

Time, the ducks and the beastly Canada geese are probably responsible for the gradual erosion of these banks. Perhaps even the many grass snakes living on various patches around the moat have also contributed. Not a lot of people know that grasss snakes love swimming - hence their latin name natrix natrix. It is only mildly alarming when swimming you see their little heads above the water as they wiggle their way from one bank to another. Enough digression - here are the banks - newly rebuilt with a concrete base and, for aesthetic reasons, stone on the top which will end up being visible above the water level. Cost prohibited doing the whole thing in stone.

This side is still being finished, but you can see that here we are having to fill in between the eroded bank and what we assume was the original shore line. The filler here is the blue clay originally used to line the base of the moat when it was constructed in the early 15th century.

700th Anniversary

The core of the existing house was built in 1306 by Sir John de Broughton.

That makes these corbel heads in the Groined Passage 700 years old this year. In recognition of their longevity and the hundreds of years that they have watched over us, we give them a blogout ('blog outing' ?)...

We don't know who they actually are. Could they be Sir John de Broughton himself and his family? Could they be the architect of the house? or the stonemasons? Why is the man drinking from a horn, or blowing a horn? or on his mobile? Perhaps one is Edward I - Sir John de Broughton II, responsible for much of the major early building work, was one of Edward I's captains.

In among these charming characters you find a few animals and symbolic figures - here is our Green Man - a very poor photo I'm afraid. The oak leaves protruding from his mouth have been broken off so it looks as if he is smoking a cheroot. For more on Green Men see Mike Harding's site here . Somewhere I heard that often you find a hare opposite a Green Man, and sure enough here is ours.

nice lines....Broughton Castle November's frost 2005
copyright Martin Fiennes, (and my current screensaver)

Now that I am 95% finished on the new website (see www.broughtoncastle.com) I am going to start off doing some more regular postings on the blog.

So, advance notice here of a few events lining up for Broughton in 2006:

Saturday 17th May - Flower festival in Broughton church
Saturday 3rd June - Walk in the park to raise money for Diabetes
Saturday 22nd July - Jazz concert in the park to raise money for the new Cheshire Home building in Banbury

More detail on each of these and other similar to follow.