The Brits are so blasé about living across the street from a castle:
This is Coity Castle, built by the Norman knight Payn de Turberville.
And here’s the plaque, which bears the unfortunate title “Growing Payns.” Since everything here is bilingual Welsh/English, I’m not sure I want to know what the Welsh translation actually means.
(This plaque made me very happy. It color-codes the phases of building. I snapped a picture and went on a scavenger hunt for the oldest bits of stonework. It satisfies my compulsion to know when things were built.)
Here’s a crumbling corner from sometime around the 14th century:
Here’s a bit of outer wall (also circa 14th century?) with two very fat starlings on top of it:
Here’s the 12th-century gate (though I’d be very surprised if that top storey and possibly the gate arch weren’t added during a later phase).
This is a pillar from the middle of the keep. Picture what the room would have looked like when each of these arches was complete. Kind of like a bundt cake, right? Now ask yourself why a keep needs a room that looks like a bundt cake. (I don’t have an answer. Google doesn’t seem to either. Maybe arches were just stronger than joists to support the upper storeys?).
