I am staying in a castle at the moment. Be it a rather small castle. This castle will
be my accommodation for two more days.
It is in the north of England. Far north.
Just a tad north-west of Newcastle and only a few miles short of Scotland’s
border. This castle is one of a number
of little castles in the Northumberland area.
From what I gather it has a long history of involvement in the Scottish-English
marauding and battles. I shall not
maraud or battle but enjoy some quiet, self-time in this castle and its
surrounds.
Why here and why this castle? Because I can.
And because in July after Sister Delwyn reminded me of its
existence it was added to my ‘If I Had Time I Would Like To Do’ list. By chance I found I have the time.
The ‘castle’ (it really is now only a largish house but is
known as a castle and shall continue to refer to it as such) is called Ogle
Castle. The first written history about
the castle, that I am aware of, was in 1341 which means it would have been
built prior to that date and most probably in the century or three earlier as
the first recorded history of a person named Ogle is lodged in the Magna Carta
in 1066. A chap called Humphrey. A descendant of the Saxons. It was in 1341 that King Edward 111 had the
Ogle manner named as a castle, Ogle Castle.
My paternal grandmother was an Ogle. At home on my bookshelf is a book written on
the history of the Ogles from New Zealand back through the centuries in Britain
to their known origin. The book, or
journal as it really is only a journal, was given to me by my grandmother’s
daughter in recent years. Pity is, it
would be a good few years since I read the book and of course, due to much of
it referring to the British history, I did not retain too much of that which I
read. Consequently when Sister Delwyn
reminded me there was an Ogle Castle in Northumberland I expressed surprise. My floppy disc brain always takes a while for
it to whir and regurgitate the information stored and it wasn’t until much
later that some of the history I had read in our family book began to return to
the somewhat failing hard drive.
Ogle is not a common name, there are a few in New Zealand,
some in Australia and a number in the US, all descendants of original
immigrants from Britain. There is no
doubt that any Ogles in the world today will have some DNA link to one
another. And that DNA would be traced
back to here, this very place I am presently at.
Therefore, once I knew I would be in the UK longer than
anticipated the concept of visiting Ogle Castle became a possibility. And here I am. Writing this sitting in a quaint, yet solid
four-poster bed, in a room that has a large stone fireplace, and the room has
windows on both my left and my right overlooking beautiful gardens. The windows give one the feel they have been
thrown back in time to the 12th or 13th century – they
show the walls of the castle are two foot thick.
The view from my bedroom window:
I took afternoon tea in one of the lounges yesterday, its
fireplace was huge. Delwyn and I visited
Hampton Court Castle in July and the fireplace in that castle’s kitchen was
enormous, big enough to stand up in – the fireplace here is almost as large.
Over the centuries the Ogle Castle fell into ruin, so much
of it has disappeared leaving only this present building which was only one
small wing of the original castle.
Thankfully this has survived, be it for many years as farm buildings but
in recent years reconverted into living accommodation and now run as a private
bed and breakfast hotel. Probably one of
the more unique ones I have stayed in during my many stays in various places
these past four months.
The castle is for sale, at quite a nominal price, $NZ 2,600,000. Well, the castle is not for sale, this left
over part of the castle which is now described as a ‘detached 9 bedroom house’
on the castle estate is for sale. With
its nine acres and separate stone built 3 bedroom, 2 lounge house at its
entrance way. A snip of a price.
Should you feel like a life style break, something different
to do for a couple or more years, buy this place. I am sure you would enjoy the English country
life style – I note there is a market day in the local town today, the ideal
place to sell the eggs from the hens you would have running on the property. Or the bread you bake in the enormous fire
places.
I have already seen the area is popular with local cyclists
as had to negotiate passing three or four on my journey here yesterday. On these lovely, country lanes negotiating
the passing of a cyclist is not an easy or relaxed task. With the lanes being so narrow and inevitably
winding, with the hedgerows so high one cannot see any oncoming traffic, or
sheep, there is little opportunity to pass safely which means one tends to have
to drive at a cycling speed for a period before planting the foot on the
accelerator for the only one hundred metre opportunity of passing.
And one can swim locally too. Before checking into the
castle yesterday I visited the local town and to my annoyance parked right
outside the town swimming pool.
Annoyance because I had no swim suit or goggles or towels with me and it
would have been prime opportunity to test my memory recall on the ability to
swim again.
After this scribe I shall don my rather tired and
semi-redundant looking running shoes and head out onto those narrow lanes and
negotiate my way around the bends and see how well I can run for a whole
fifteen minutes, before turning around and returning the fifteen minute
journey. That will be about it.
The nice thing is, somewhere on that thirty minute journey I
will most certainly be treading some footsteps, some pathway that some far, far
and distant relative of mine would have tread back in the twelfth or thirteenth
century. Cool aye!
The Ogle motto is:
Prenez en Gré
"Accept in Gratitude"
Yes, very cool.
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