The prompt for this weeks gallery was ‘roads i travel’.

I always try to find the road that leads me to light, understanding and happiness.

Finding that road is always a challenge…

More inspiration can be found in the ‘roads i travel’ gallery.

In September 1992, archaeologists from the Canterbury Archaeological Trust working alongside contractors on a new road link between Dover and Folkestone discovered the remains of a large wooden prehistoric boat thought to be some 3,000 years old, belonging to a period known to archaeologists as the Bronze Age.

It was a find of both national and international significance which will shed new light on early seafaring and woodworking skills in Northern Europe.

An interesting article on the finding and salvaging of the boat can be seen on the Current Archaeology website.

The upper chapel is in the first tower over the forebuilding steps immediately above the lower chapel.  Next to it is a small square room, probably designed as the royal pew, with a stone bench for the king.  The chapel itself is a church in miniature, with a tiny nave and chancel.  As with the lower chapel, both royal pew and chapel are notable for the richness of their mouldings: the vault ribs with dog-tooth ornament, the arcaded walls, the shafts and columns with foliated capitals and the chancel arch enriched with chevron decoration.  These closely match contemporary work at Canterbury Cathedral.  Later the chapel was dedicated to Thomas Becket the archbishop murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by four of Henry II’s knights, a few years before the king began his great reconstruction of Dover. *

*Info from the guide book.

It was constructed as an octagonal tower using local flint and Roman bricks, but only its lowest four stages survive. Its rectangular interior had a series of timber-floored chambers; at the top there was probably a platform for some kind of brazier. The lighthouse keeper might have lived in or next to the tower, but no evidence of such occupation has ever been found. It seems likely that the lighthouse ceased to be used regularly after the Romans left in the early fifth century, but a 12th-century reference to a lighthouse keeper here suggests that it may then have again been in operation.

In later years the exterior was refaced and Humphrey, duke of Gloucester rebuilt the top as bell-tower for the neighbouring church between 1415 and 1437.

Next to the lighthouse stands the church of St Mary-in-Castro, Which was built in around 1000.

The reasons for the church’s location on this windswept chalk hill remain unclear.  The most likely explanation is that it was built within a now-vanished late-Saxon burgh, or defensive enclosure.

The church was restored during the 19th century and all though a large part of the church remains original some modifications were made. *

*All information from the guidebook.

The great tower was the last and most elaborate in the tradition of huge rectangular royal great towers, begun in England in the previous century with The Tower of London and Colchester:

The great tower of Dover Castle is the last and grandest of the keeps built by the kings of England in the 11th and 12th centuries.  It was built in 1180-85 by Henry II (r. 1154-89) to provide a palatial setting in which he could welcome visitors to England, in particular those coming on pilgrimage to the new shrine at Canterbury of St Thomas Becket, who was murdered by four of Henry’s knights against the king’s wished in 1170.  The great tower may look like a defensive building but it was a palace, designed for royal ceremony and to house Henry’s household with its various departments on their occasional, brief visits.*

English Heritage have recently redecorated the tower to show how it might have looked like inside the tower when it was newly completed and ready to receive an important visitor.

*From the guide book.

Although I am a member of English Heritage I still had to pick tickets up on the way in and I was given an introductory leaflet.  When I looked at it I noticed it was in French, I wonder if they thought I was French?

To enter the inner bailey you have to go through Palace Gate:

The inner bailey walls, built by Henry II in the 1180s, are punctuated by 14 projecting rectangular wall towers, enabling defenders to use flanking fire to prevent an an enemy approaching the main curtain walls.  The two gateways are well protected between pairs of towers, the earliest English examples of such planning.  Both gateways had outer defence works, or barbicans, but on the northern one survives.  It’s outer gateway is deliberately not aligned with the inner gateway, to blunt the rush of any attacking force. *

Since they were built the walls have been refaced and reduced in size.

*From the Dover Castle guide book.

Freedom is important to include in my ‘100 Reasons to be Glad’ because there isn’t a single day goes by that I am not reminded that our freedoms are constantly being eroded away.

Freedom

I WILL not follow you, my bird,
I will not follow you.
I would not breathe a word, my bird,
To bring thee here anew.

I love the free in thee, my bird,
The lure of freedom drew;
The light you fly toward, my bird,
I fly with thee unto.

And there we yet will meet, my bird,
Though far I go from you
Where in the light outpoured, my bird,
Are love and freedom too.

by George William Russell