Lewes Castle

In August Ed and I went to Lewes Castle, in the neighboring town of Lewes. This was the third castle I'd been to so far. I arbitrarily decided at some point that four castles would be enough. Here's me enjoying a posh lemonade outside the entrance to the castle, which is not that towerarch in the background, but which is out of frame to the left.

Just inside there was a little model of the castle and grounds. It has two mottes, which is uncommon, one at each end.

I had evil plans for this castle, as you can see.

Stock photo:

Credit for the above caption goes to Ed's friend Neil. Thanks, Neil.

Where I was a more dejected and perhaps remorseful prisoner, Ed seems stubbornly indignant.

Here's the grassy courtyard. Before leaving we played this game called quoits, which is a game of rings tossed onto a peg, like horseshoes. On the right you can see the peg and a quoit. We both sucked at it, bad. It's harder because the quoits are made of rope with a small piece of wood, I assumed to give it weight and to hold on to. It's not a lot of weight, though, so they are subject to winds and weak tosses and such.

What not to do if your cannon fails to fire:

From the top of the castle keep, we took some views of Lewes and the surrounding cities. Lewes is very quaint. Walking through downtown was like being in the 1800s or something.

 

 Striking a Riker:

At the base of the keep is a yard with a tree in the middle, and a few around the perimeter, where it was very windy, but cute.

Although the castle seemed pretty complete, if you climb up to the second level and look over the courtyard, it becomes evident that some is missing. You can see only the last remaining wall of the smaller motte, which is next to the very well preserved barbican.

Across the road where you buy tickets and visit the gift shop, they have a cool model of the whole town of Lewes, with a short documentary running every twenty minutes or something, which gives a history of the town. Sometimes the parts of the town that are talked about in the video light up on the model. Ooooh.

We spent quite a long time studying the model, looking at all the tiny houses, trees, the occasional person, wagon, ladder, etc. It was fun. Then we went home. The end.