Today has been very much a day of two halves – first exploring the ruins of a medieval castle, and then poking around the preserved family seat of a proper line of military lunatics.
This morning we visited Beaumaris – famed as “the greatest castle never built” – just north of the Menai bridge. It was commissioned by Edward I of Wales in the early 1300s – the last and most impressive of the castles built under his watch – and left unfinished when (a) he ran out of money, and (b) William Wallace invaded from Scotland – distracting him somewhat.
I was going to write “Mel Gibson invaded from Scotland, wearing a kilt that hadn’t been invented yet”, but thought that might cause too much trouble.
It’s an impressive castle – even unfinished and left to fall into ruin. It’s difficult to imagine what if might have looked like with a few more million spent on it.
After wandering the castle grounds, and trying to avoid several school trips, we wandered into the surrounding town and bought our own bodyweight in bread, cheese, pickle, and various other things to take back to the cottage later.
The afternoon was taken up with a visit to Plas Newydd – the historic family home of the Paget family – made famous by Henry Paget – 1st Marquess of Angelsey, who lost his leg at the battle of Waterloo. A now famous scene is purported to have unfolded as follows:
(crack of french canon fire, in which a cannonball narrowly whistled past the Duke of Wellington, and slammed into Anglesey’s ninth horse of the day – taking with it most of his leg too;
Anglesey : “By god Sir, I’ve lost my leg!”
Wellington: “By god Sir, so you have!”
Apparently his amputated leg became something of a tourist attraction in the village of Waterloo, Belgium, for many years.
The house was interesting – filled with enormous paintings by friends of the family over the generations. One entire drawing room wall is covered by a fictional European scene by the artist “Rex” Whistler – who’s engagement to marry one of the family’s daughters would have been announced on his return from Normandy during the second world war. Like so many others, he never came home.
We’re now back at the cottage – trying to do nothing on purpose. It’s surprisingly difficult after spending so many years racing from one thing to the next.
p.s. I might have resurrected my WordPress blog