London Sightseeing Pass: Westminster Palace and Abbey & St Margaret’s Church continue… August 25, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Cars, Destination, Ireland, Library, London, Museum, Rail Pass, Scotland, Sightseeing, Tickets, Tour, Trip, Wellington , 5commentsA cult developed around Edward. There were accounts of him healing the sick while he was alive, and rumours of cures at his tomb continued. In 1102 it was opened and his body found incorrupt. After a campaign lasting for decades, Edward the Confessor was canonized in 1161. His body was raised from the tomb before the high altar and replaced in a richly ornamented shrine, the key, sacred focal point of the Abbey. (more…)
Windsor Castle: A fortress gradually converted into the residence of Kings May 24, 2008
Posted by dodo in : France, London , add a commentWindsor Castle is a unique combination of a fortress, royal palace, a tomb of kings and queens and a glorious church in which the ideals of Christian chivalry are cherished and kept alive. This diversification of purpose is a fortuitous development, for it was as a stronghold to secure the western approaches to London that the Normans first chose this commanding site on a chalk outcrop above the Thames. The precise date of the construction of the first fortifications is not known, but Windsor Castle is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 when it probably consisted of no more than the central keep, an artificial chalk mound fifty feet high surmounted by a wooden blockhouse. There were doubtless outlying palisades which would give adequate protection in an assault until the garrison could be mustered in the keep, where a deep well (still to be seen under the floor of a room in the Round Tower) would enable the defenders to withstand a siege. (more…)
