Sitting on a bench beside the Humber Estuary one evening recently noticed, on the incoming tide, two animals. One I pronounced a sea otter, having once heard from the late Miles Hopper, an eminent local naturalist, that they may sometimes be seen in the Estuary. Only its head was occasionally popping above water level so on that […]

Although at Wressle Castle it may have been possible to flood the surrounding land from the River Derwent in times of threat there is no evidence that this happened (s.p.b.s). However, defence was a primary consideration in determining the lay-out plan of earlier local castles. The Norman motte-and-bailey castles at Skipsea and Barrow (considered in a

The Northumberland Household Book compiled in the early 16th century provides lots of details about everyday life at Wressle and Leconfield Castles. Leconfield Castle was another of the Percy’s stately defended residences (Leconfield Castle has been discussed in an earlier blog in the context of Henry VIII’s Northern Progress). Dating from a time 100 years before

The ruined south façade of Wressle Castle is a Grade 1 ‘listed ruin’, being 10 years or so past classed as ‘at risk’ various works were done to ‘increase the shelf-life’ of this standing ruin.  Estimated to have originally been built in the late 14th century it was built to the standard lay-out plan of a

Yesterday evening’s Country File programme included a section on the Hampton Court flower show. An aerial view showed the Tudor period house beside a meander of the River Thames. Built, originally, to the instructions of Cardinal Wolsey early in the reign of the second Tudor monarch Henry VIII Hampton Court was a grand example of the

News from the World Wildlife Fund – In Colombia, north South America, a vast area of Amazonian rain forest has been officially designated a national park and U.N.E.S.C.O. World Heritage Site. The Serrania del Chiribiquete national park, now the largest national park protecting rain forest, is home for a multitude of species, some endangered such