So, Lancaster Castle, a formidable structure defying the advancement of time. Must have a magnificent history. Well, actually, not really.
It all started when we went to Lancaster Castle for a tour of the castle. It was quite interesting. For one thing, if you count the roman fort that stood there before the castle, it has technically been around for almost two thousand years. Here’s the history:
So, a really long time, there was a roman fort, which was built during the roman conquest of Britain. Once it was abandoned by the romans, something might have happened to it but there weren’t any records from said time so we don’t exactly know what might have happened. And then came William the conqueror from Normandy. He went and changed everything, converting it from a fort into a proper castle.
Several English kings (there might have been a queen or two in there) and numerous years later, there came a big change to Lancaster castle. It was changed, into a Prison!… Seriously, it stood proud in the city of Lancaster and the Georgians just came and changed it into a measly prison! Honestly, people of the past, no respect for ancient stuff. Also, when I say prison, I mean proper prison, like, prison as we know them today. Before, it was used as a debtors prison. It means that it was used for people who couldn’t pay their debts and were thrown into prison. It was also used as a holding cell for those who were going to be executed. But, before the Georgians, it wasn’t a proper prison.
Anyhow, in case you didn’t get the memo, the castle was switched into a prison and it stayed like that all the way up to 2011, which is quite impressive. It had been a prison for over 200 years.
Aside from those two big changes, nothing else really happened to the castle. It was attacked twice and the defenders surrendered twice. First time by the bucketheads (sorry, meant roundheads) and the second by the Jacobites (Scottish rebels). It seems like it has an amazing history to it but it doesn’t really.
So, thus endeth my blog post. Hope y’all enjoyed it.
A year of discovery 