Strolling out of the front door on a sunny morning and looking across the road at the sea must be one of the best things in the world… and this is what we did on our third day of holiday. We’d had another pleasant evening, playing board games after a dinner of meat balls, crusty bread and salad.
We strolled southwards along the prom and then cut up into the Mulgrave Estate; it was a beautiful woodland walk and we ambled along admiring the scenery and nodding to other walkers. There were seven of us, four adults and three young people and during the walk we each managed to have conversations with the others, drifting on or lingering back, there was always someone to chat to.
The Mulgraves are an old family, barons, dukes, sirs, and deep in the woodland on the highest land is a magnificent castle.
This on the site of an ancient castle of myth and legend, which reminded me of the mysterious Dark Fort I write about in my fictitious Camel Wood. The old castle or fort disappeared beneath the Norman buildings which replaced it in the years following 1066. In the seventeenth century that too was replaced by a more ‘modern’ building. The castle now commands a commanding view and it is easy to see why it was of strategic importance.
Lois Elsden 